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THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 
VOL. VII. 1908-1909 



BRITISH EDITORIAL BOARD. 

J. SUTHERLAND BLACK, LL.D., London. 
The Rev. Canon T. K. CHEYNE, Litt.D., D.D., Oxford. 
The Rev. JAMES DRUMMOND, LL.D., Litt.D., Oxford. 
Professor PERCY GARDNER, Litt.D., Oxford. 
Professor HENRY JONES, LL.D., D.Litt., Glasgow. 
The Very Rev. G. W. KITCHIN, D.D., Dean of Durham. 
Principal Sir OLIVER LODGE, D.Sc., F.R.S., Birmingham. 
The Rev. JAS. MOFFATT, D.D., Broughty Ferry, N.B. 
Professor J. H. MUIRHEAD, M.A., Birmingham. 
Sir EDWARD RUSSELL, Liverpool. 

The Right Rev. C. W. STUBBS, D.D., Bishop of Truro. 
Professor JAMES WARD, LL.D., Cambridge. 



AMERICAN EDITORIAL BOARD. 

Professor B. W. BACON, D.D., Professor of New Testament Criticism and 

Exegesis, Yale. 
Professor WM. ADAMS BROWN, Roosevelt Professor of Systematic Theology, 

Union Theological Seminary. 

Dr E. B. CRAIG HE AD, President of the Tulane University of Louisiana. 
The Rev. Dr SAMUEL A. ELIOT, President of the American Unitarian 

Association. 
Professor G. H. HOWISON, Mills Professor of Philosophy, University of 

California. 
Professor C. J. KEYSER, Adrain Professor of Mathematics, Columbia 

University. 
Professor A. O. LOVEJOY, Professor of Philosophy, Washington University, 

St Louis. 
Professor A. C. M'GIFFERT, Professor of Church History, Union Theological 

Seminary. 

The Rev. R. HEBER NEWTON, D.D. 

Professor JOSIAH ROYCE, Professor of Philosophy, Harvard. 
Professor GEORGE E. VINCENT, Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago. 
Dr R. S. WOODWARD, President of the Carnegie Institution, Washington. 



THE 



HIBBERT JOURNAL 

A QUARTERLY REVIEW OF 

RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND 

PHILOSOPHY 



EDITED BY 



L. P. JACKS, M.A. 



AND 



G. DA WES HICKS, M.A., Ph.D., Litt.D. 



VOLUME VII 

OCTOBER 1908 JULT 1909 



LONDON 
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 

1909 



Bt 

I 

Hf 



THE 

HIBBERT JOURNAL 



THE MISCARRIAGE OF LIFE IN 
THE WEST. 

P. RAMANATHAN, C.M.G., K.C., 

H.M. Solicitor-General, Ceylon. 

How interesting to every thoughtful person is the problem 
whether his life is carrying him to the proper goal or not ! 
The mind that runs indiscreetly with the senses, as they go 
a-hunting for sights, sound, smells, touches, and tastes, is much 
too occupied with external things to grasp the importance of 
this issue. When the senses get wearied of their respective 
works, they fall asleep and rise freshened for the hunt again. 
At a later stage of existence, when the evils of self-indulgence 
have been repeatedly felt and much pain caused thereby to the 
mind, it refuses to run promiscuously with the senses ; and the 
senses, deprived of the willing support of the mind, remain 
proportionately undrawn by sense-objects. It is at this period 
of comparative peace that the mind comes to know its separate- 
ness from the senses and its capacity for righteous work by 
control of the senses, formation of sound thoughts, and correla- 
tion of them in the way that leads to the discovery of what lies 
under the surface of things. What is the first deep truth 
learnt in this manner, as the result or fruit of worldly experi- 
ence, by the analytic mind which refuses to be in bondage to 
VOL. VII. No. 1. i 1 



2 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the senses ? It is this the beauty of things perceived by the 
senses turns into ugliness, and the joys arising from them change 
into sorrows. The more clearly one sees that the attrac- 
tions of nature, including the human body, and the pleasures 
which spring from a contemplation of them, are as perishable 
as quicksand heaps in a flowing river, the more urgent to him 
becomes the solution of the problem whether his life is carrying 
him to the proper destination or not. For if the mind is con- 
vinced that it is folly to be wedded too deeply to things 
perceivable by the senses, owing to the certainty of their 
decay and disappearance, it will assuredly turn from such 
passing shows and look eagerly for something more real in 
the world to occupy itself with, and delight in, without the 
interruptions of sorrow, anger, and hate. Such is the experi- 
ence of men and women on whom the truth has dawned that 
beautiful forms and sensuous pleasures wither like the grass of 
the field. It is to this class of persons that the question of 
the miscarriage of life will be of interest. 

We have next to consider what life means in such expres- 
sions as " the miscarriage of life," " the right use of life," and 
" is life worth caring for ? " In regard to these phrases, 
which, be it noted, rise instinctively to the lips of those who 
are not too fond of sensuous enjoyments, it will not do to think 
of life as a round of pleasures, or as joys mixed with sorrows, 
or as animate existence with its phases of growth and decay. 
None of these meanings will help us to answer rightly the 
question raised, for in it is involved the profound truth, little 
known to the sensuous-minded, but universally attested by 
sanctified sages as an incontrovertible fact, that souls have 
been endowed with instruments of breath, knowledge, and 
action, as well as different spheres of training (such as home, 
school and profession, married life and society, government and 
politics, industry and amusement), for the beneficent purpose 
of emancipating themselves from corruption ; and therefore, 
unless " life " is taken to mean the aggregate of those ministers 
of the soul who labour for it, the question whether one's " life " 



MISCARRIAGE OF LIFE IN THE WEST 3 

is "carrying" one to his destination or not, cannot be 
answered properly. 

The truth that " life," in one of its deeper senses, means 
the ministers of the soul, has been recognised by thoughtful 
men in the West. About thirty years ago, when the views 
of Schopenhauer and Hartmann began to prevail and the 
question " Is life worth living ? " became the topic of the day, 
it was conceded that " life " was a mystery in all its forms, 
vegetable, animal, and human, and various were the solutions 
offered in the monthly magazines of the period. Speaking of 
human life, St George Mivart said : " An inevitable instinct 
impels us all to seek our own happiness and to gratify our 
passions and desires, though we are by no means compelled 
always in all cases to choose whatever we most like. Yet, 
however we may suffer ourselves to be borne passively along 
the pleasure-seeking current, our reason can, even while we 
are so borne along, ask the question : Are we rational if we 
acquiesce in happiness as the supreme and deliberate aim of 
our life ? The answer of reason to itself must surely be that 
the rational end of life is that which should be its end, i.e. 
which ought to be its end ; and * ought ' is meaningless without 
the conception 'duty.'" He came to the conclusion that 
" life " meant fulfilment of duty ; for such fulfilment the will 
should be exercised in accordance with reason and apart from 
the pleasures of the moment ; and that the exercise of the 
will in this manner was the highest act of which we are 
capable, and that to which all our lower passions and faculties 
minister (art. on "The Meaning of Life," in the Nineteenth 
Century, March 1879). 

Reason and will are, indeed, most important parts of life. 
But life is more than reason and will, for the " life " of a man 
is said to be extinct when his " breath " ceases to function in 
the body. What is this " breath " ? It is not a passing 
breeze chased away by another which follows it. The breath 
of life, that is, the " breath " called " life " (as in the expression 
" the continent of Europe," which means the continent called 



4 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Europe) is not a passing gust, but an aerially-constituted 
power which expires and inspires in a settled rhythmic manner, 
while located in the body, and which in the act of inspiring 
draws the atmospheric air into the channels of the body, and 
in the act of expiring expels it in regular succession, and which 
further makes many other delicate adjustments conducive to 
the safety and proper working of the mind and body. It is 
called prdna in Sanskrit, or life, or the principle of breath, or 
the breather, because, say the sages, it is not only powerful 
but also intelligent in its own way, and accommodates itself 
to every conceivable position, and keeps order among other 
aerially-constituted powers within us, when disarrangement 
takes place. Sages skilled in prdndydma yoga, or the art of 
breath-control, and their apt pupils, are equally certain that the 
prdna (or the breath named life) in the body permeates every 
other instrument of the soul, and imparts to them both initiatory 
movement and endurance in their respective works. Hence the 
word prdna, or life, is often used to include all its colleagues. 

The greatest of these colleagues is the mind (manas), the 
thinker, or the intelligent and powerful entity which makes 
thought out of sense-percepts, and correlates them in the 
most wonderful manner. In the Bhagavad Gttd is declared 
the truth that the mind is the instrument by which the 
resurrection of the soul or spirit is effected. " The uplifting 
of the soul (dtma uddhdranam) from corruption has to be done 
by the mind. Since mind only is the ally of the soul, and 
mind only the enemy of the soul, the mind should not be 
made impure by letting it run on sensuous things" (vi. 5). 
A mind that capers about indiscreetly with the senses becomes 
quite useless for the edification of the soul. It cannot build 
it up in love and light. If the ministers of the soul do not 
assiduously keep themselves clear of the pollutions of worldli- 
ness, which is another name for that element of corruption in 
man which impels him to be selfish and to indulge freely in 
the grosser forms of sensuous enjoyment, they will not be able 
to guide or carry the soul to its proper haven of Light and 



MISCARRIAGE OF LIFE IN THE WEST 5 

Love. Overcome by the wild fancies of ignorance and hate, 
they will drift further and further away from that glorious 
port with their precious charge. This drifting away of the 
mind into sensuous planes, and its inability to serve the spirit 
as it should, is the meaning of " life miscarrying." It must be 
carefully remembered that we are now concerned with inner, 
not outward things ; that the Light and Love to be reached, 
as well as the soul and its guides or carriers, are housed in the 
body ; that the journey of life does not mean the movement 
of the body from one place to another in the objective world, 
but the turning of the mind from things worldly to things 
godly, and the awakening of the soul to a knowledge of God ; 
and that unless the mind and the other ministers of the soul 
are cultured and strengthened, under the direction of apt 
teachers, for lawful and loveful works, they cannot quicken 
the soul, i.e. make the soul to recognise its fallen condition 
and rise to its own spiritual state, so as to know (as only it 
can know) and be at one with God, the Eternal Being, who 
is in all, through all, and above all, who is imperceptible to 
the senses and unthinkable by the mind, but who is knowable 
by the purified soul. It is positively true that the awakening 
of the soul to God does not take place till the interest of its 
ministers turns from the things of the flesh to the things of 
the spirit (soul). The moment the mind's attention or gaze 
is fixed steadily inwards, the soul awakens, like the lotus-bud 
in the morning sun, and gives all its energy to the study of 
itself and its relationship with God and the subjective and 
objective worlds. 

The solution of the problem of the miscarriage of life thus 
necessitates a careful examination and ascertainment of 

(1) The being and properties of the soul ; 

(2) The nature of the corrupt power which holds the soul 

in bondage ; 

(3) The being and ways of God, who mercifully emancipates 

the soul and takes it back, when purified, to be in 
constant fellowship with Him ; 



6 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

(4) The nature and functions of the different instruments 

with which the soul is endowed for the attainment of 
spiritual freedom ; 

(5) The spheres of training ordained for the culture and 

purification of the instruments of the soul ; and 

(6) The special methods by which the soul may be 

sanctified, that is, isolated from all the entanglements 
of corruption. 

This is a severe course of study and training which will tax 
one's powers to the utmost, but it is fully worth the trouble, 
because it is the very kind of education which, when combined 
with exercises in godliness, leads to actual knowledge of God, 
and to a complete emancipation from sorrow, anger, fear, and 
hate. 

Supposing we have students qualified in mind and body to 
hear and understand the truths relating to spiritual life, our 
first duty to them is to free them from the vain convictions to 
which they have been bred from their infancy to disentangle 
them from the bonds of common mistake as well as of learned 
ignorance. Every land and age has its own obstructions to the 
comprehension and practice of the principles of true life. The 
difficulties which beset the seeker in India at the present day, 
for instance, are different from those of the seeker in Europe. 
A consideration of the main causes of the miscarriage of life in 
India such as, firstly, the corporeal caste system which has 
all but strangled the intellectual caste system taught by sages 
under the name of Varnasrama Dharma, for the practical 
advancement of all who would be spiritual in every part of the 
globe ; and, secondly, the utter forgetfulness of the truth that 
the works section of the Vedas and Agamas was designed only 
for awakening the spirit to a knowledge of itself and of God- 
is not called for in this paper. For the present we must 
concern ourselves with the obstacles in Christendom to spiritual 
progress. 

In Western lands there is little effort made to distinguish 
between the kernel and the shell the essence and the excres- 



MISCARRIAGE OF LIFE IN THE WEST 7 

cences of religion. Notwithstanding the assurance of Christ 
Jesus that His doctrines existed from the foundation of the 
world, those who call themselves Christians attach the greatest 
importance to the history of verbal controversies in the 
different centuries following His era. More than thirty years 
ago, Mr Gladstone bewailed "the singularly multiform and 
confused aspect of religious thought in Christendom," and said : 
" At every point there start into action multitudes of aimless 
or erratic forces, crossing and jostling one another, and refusing 
not only to be governed, but even to be classified. Any 
attempt to group them, however slightly and however roughly, 
if not hopeless, is daring" (art. on "The Courses of Religious 
Thought," in the Contemp. Rev., June 1876). The numerous 
controversies which have arisen in and out of Christian 
councils are due to the literary ability as well as the spiritual 
ignorance of those learned in the words of the Bible. Not 
being delivered from " the oldness of the letter," as observed 
by St Paul, which corresponds to the purva paksham of 
Indian epistemology, they have been too prone to differentiate 
and too contentious, and this attitude of the mind is fatal to 
the religious life itself. Such persons know not what religion 
truly is, and are therefore addicted to the habit of attaching 
needless importance to unessential growths in Christian belief. 
Narrow in mind, they seek to monopolise God, though He is 
everywhere, and has manifested Himself from the remotest 
times, aeons before Jesus was sanctified and sent into Judaea, 
up to the present day, to everyone who has renounced at heart 
the deceptive attractions of the world and longed for grace. 
How few in Christendom know that religion does not consist 
in words, professions, and ceremonies, but in heartfelt longing 
for the Imperishable Substrate of all things ! The names and 
forms, ideals and practices of every creed, are intended only to 
create a love for God, a bond of union between God and man. 
Religion, from religare, to bind, is the love-bond which unites 
man to God. This love of God is the essence of religion. 
When it has arisen in the heart, it is destined to grow fuller 



8 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

and fuller by association with godly men and by frequent 
meditation on things spiritual, and to enter into union with 
Love Infinite, even as a river fed by perennial streams is 
bound to join the ocean, howsoever distant. Articles of faith 
and dogmatic teachings, being only methods for causing the 
love of God to spring in the heart, are not religion in the 
highest sense of the term, for the religious man is he who lives 
for God through love of God. He is not controversial, defiant, 
or monopolising. He is not jealous that God has manifested 
Himself beyond the bounds of his own sect. He welcomes 
with joy the tidings of divine grace wheresoever shown, for he 
knows that his God lives and reigns far beyond his own little 
neighbourhood. 

Another grand difficulty in the West is the triumvirate of 
theology, philosophy, and science, which have made sceptics 
and agnostics of seekers by thousands. For fifteen centuries 
after the days of Jesus, the people implicitly believed the 
bishops and clergy of the Church. But when the fierce 
controversies of the Reformation arose, and the current of 
thought initiated by Bacon, Descartes, Locke and others began 
to flow steadily, widened by the discoveries of physical science 
and astronomy, the intelligent among the faithful were dis- 
mayed to find that the authorities of the Church were not, in 
the words of St Paul, "apt to teach or convince the gain- 
sayers." Their faith was shaken when the increasing sense of 
law produced by the study of physical sciences forced them 
"more and more to attribute all the phenomena that meet 
them in actual life or history to normal, rather than to 
abnormal, agencies " (Lecky's History of Rationalism in 
Europe, ch. iii.). They could not believe in abnormal revela- 
tions and miracles, nor accept the usual interpretations of the 
hard sayings of the Bible. The ancient claim of theology to 
speak with authority on all subjects of inquiry was rejected, 
and indeed relinquished : " It restricts itself to the region of 
faith, and leaves to philosophy and science the region of 
inquiry " (Lewes' History of Philosophy, Prolog. 1). In this 



MISCARRIAGE OF LIFE IN THE WEST 9 

field of free investigation, science deals with demonstrable or 
verifiable facts only, and philosophy consists of the interpreta- 
tions of such facts and their possible causes, as also of purely 
speculative thought respecting things that transcend the senses. 
The West is ruled by this strange coalition. But there is no 
cohesion or consistency in it. The standpoints of view of the 
theologian, the philosopher, and the scientist are different from 
each other. The theologian proclaims God as the goal of life, 
believing the testimony of the Biblical sages. The philosopher 
and the scientist have no such belief or goal, being prepared to 
go wherever the imaginative or hypothetical reasoning of the 
one, or the matter-of-fact experiment (on bodies perceivable 
by the senses) of the other, takes them. " We have scanned 
the heavens and the earth, but we have no evidence of God's 
existence ; we do not know Him," say they. It is thus not 
difficult to see that the so-called triumvirate is a house divided 
against itself. The three powers confound and unsettle each 
other, and eveiyone else, by their discordant notes. Hence, it 
is usual in the West to say : " Science declares so and so, 
philosophy so and so, and theology so and so ; and now what 
do you say ? " And the reply is : "1 don't know, I am sure, 
but I think it is so and so." What progress is possible in this 
unsettled state of knowledge, in this reign of controversy ? 

Nevertheless, the West is firmly persuaded that it is 
progressing satisfactorily. It is proud of its "success" in 
industry, science, and politics, and claims to have created, and 
to live in, an age of progress. " Fifty years of ever-broadening 
commerce, fifty years of ever-brightening science, and fifty 
years of ever- widening empire," represent the cry of those who 
are satisfied with material prosperity, even though its silver 
lines are set on a background of squalid poverty and lawless 
schemes of revolution. Are we really living in an age of 
progress, or is it only a flattering fancy which obstructs a true 
perspective of life and lulls people to slumber in error, in 
imminent peril of losing a life's opportunity ? The subject is 
worthy of careful analysis. 



10 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

What is the true position of Western nations in regard to 
what is called industrial progress ? 

Industry is the diligent employment of the mind, hand, 
and eye (or any other sense) on the production of something 
that is useful or ornamental; and industrial progress is the 
constant exercise of the creative talent upon the production of 
things for sensuous enjoyment. To the producer his occupa- 
tion brings some money by the sale of his work, so that he is 
able to supply himself and those whom he loves with the 
needs and comforts of the body. A more enduring return to 
the steadfast worker is the improvement of his mind. When 
it is set upon industrial work regularly, it becomes steady, 
sharp, and discriminating, and therefore thinks straight and 
sees clear, especially if it is literate and law-abiding. It then 
becomes reflective. During this stage of introspection it 
discovers signs of the spirit within, and its interest in matters 
concerning the spirit grows to be keen. Even as in days gone 
by the mind stood united to the things of the flesh, it now 
prefers union with the spirit. Once carnally-minded and there- 
fore disturbed easily, given to hate, wanting in restfulness and 
crass in understanding, it is now spiritually -minded, and there- 
fore forgiving, charitable, peaceful, and enlightened. This is 
the history of the mind set on industrial work. That work, 
done ably and with a law-abiding heart, is indeed the way to 
the goal called spiritual-mindedness, or that state of the mind 
wherein it does not allow itself to be drawn this way or that 
way by the likes and dislikes of the body, but remains true to 
the spirit, which is love and light. 

Two classes of benefits flow from industrial work, one 
external and the other internal. The external benefits are 
the supplying of increased comforts and conveniences to the 
body and the embellishing of houses and cities. But these 
are all perishable. Taught to make bubbles out of soap and 
water, a boy gave his mind to that work, blew the bubbles 
through his tube, and contemplated them as they floated 
gaily in the air. The hand that worked to produce the 



MISCARRIAGE OF LIFE IN THE WEST 11 

glittering effect rested, as the mind and eye watched the 
vainglorious thing fading in the distance. The boy felt 
happy, but that happiness was as fleeting as the bubble itself. 
In a similar way did Alexander the Great and Napoleon the 
First project empires, which rose and burst even as they were 
looking on. The external benefits of work, industrial or 
political, are comparatively of little value to the worker 
himself. To him, far more important is the internal benefit 
accruing to the mind which has done its work ably and 
justly. Such a mind, being cleansed and strengthened, 
becomes qualified for the higher work of calm reflection and 
meditation, by which alone the spirit within may be found. 
If men, individually or collectively, rest content with the 
external benefits of industrial work, without striving hard for 
the internal benefits also, the chief end of industrial work 
will be missed. 

The expansion of the industrial arts at home and the 
attainment of commercial supremacy abroad are not com- 
mendable if they stand divorced from spirituality. The spread 
of perishable wares for the convenience and adornment of 
perishable bodies is vain if the producers and carriers of 
them do not know how to save their souls from wreck and 
ruin in the wide seas of sensuousness and mean competition, 
and if the consumers of the goods do not take care to buy 
only what they really need and so prevent the pampering of the 
senses, which promotes the growth of emotion, irreverence, and 
frivolity. The industry and commerce of England, which are 
said to be the " foundations of her pride," are, in the absence 
of love for the welfare of the spirit, like fuel to the fire of 
sensuousness, which, alas ! has been burning in the people 
for some centuries, and slowly withering what is holy and 
beautiful in them. If the artisans and traders of the country 
live for the spirit, while working hard for the maintenance of 
the body and the improvement of the cities, they will be a 
shining light and perpetual source of joy to their brethren at 
home and to everyone else abroad. 



12 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Next comes this question How does the West stand in 
truth in regard to what is called scientific progress? 

With the microscope, telescope, and the chemical-tube 
the man of Western science assays all things perceivable by 
the senses, turns into horse-power the manifestations of nature, 
called of old " flesh," and utilises its brute forces either for the 
more rapid production and transport of commodities, or for the 
destruction of enemies by novel implements of warfare. The 
scope of Western science is thus limited, as in the case of 
the industrial arts, to that which relates to the body. Its 
methods of inquiry prevent it from the study of the invisible 
spirit. Though it recognises the fact that the visible came 
from the invisible, it declines to predicate anything of the 
invisible. It says nothing of the spirit, or of the bondage 
of the spirit to darkness, or of the extrication of the 
spirit therefrom. It has no spiritual discernment. Indeed, 
it does not know what that expression means. It has 
not heard of, much less experienced, the fact that there 
are three kinds of knowledge available: firstly, what the 
spirit knows through the senses; secondly, what it knows 
through the deductions and inductions of the mind ; and 
thirdly, what it knows directly, without the intervention 
of the senses or the mind. Western science is ignorant 
of the distinction between worldly knowledge and godly 
knowledge. Worldly knowledge consists of the reports 
of the senses and the inferences of the mind; and godly 
knowledge consists of what the soul only can know when 
it stands isolate as most assuredly it can by due culture 
from the senses and the mind. Western science is wholly 
ignorant of this isolation or alone - becoming of the soul, 
so well known to sanctified sages, and called by them in 
Sanscrit Kaivalyam, JSanti, Ekatvam, and in Greek Mono- 
geneia. Ignorant of the absolute existence of the invisible 
spirit and of its capacity to know God during isolation, 
and to know the world in combination with the senses and 
the mind, and obliged by the particular methods of inquiry 



MISCARRIAGE OF LIFE IN THE WEST 13 

which Western science has imposed upon itself, it disowns 
the spirit, the most real thing in the universe. There is no 
justification in truth for remaining in this state of agnosticism 
and continuing to be an ally of atheism. If it would only 
step out of its narrow sense-plane and study under proper 
guidance the deep-lying truths of the larger soul-plane, called 
the kingdom of the spirit, as assiduously as it has studied the 
secrets of the kingdom of nature, what a change would there 
be in the heart of all Europe ! It would pass from carnal- 
mindedness, and that bondage of the intellect to the senses 
which is complacently called rationalism, to spiritual-minded- 
ness, poise, and love of God. Its cities would be abodes of 
righteousness and peace, and not of selfishness, strife, and 
gnawing desire. Then, indeed, should we speak of the glories 
of scientific progress. 

And now of political progress. 

In the East the populace admit that, owing to want of 
means and leisure, they are obliged to forego the advantages 
of learning and culture save in exceptional cases. Respecting 
the law as the doctrine of neighbourly love enforced by the 
government of the country, they mind their own business, 
and rely patiently and trustfully on the guidance of their 
spiritual teachers and the consideration of the wealthy and 
the learned, who are themselves not unmindful of the spirit. 
This ideal of living in the world, not for the pampering of the 
senses but for the purification of the spirit and for its develop- 
ment in love and true knowledge, necessarily involves not only 
a genuine obedience to the law and to every constituted 
authority, such as parent, teacher, employer, magistrate, and 
other rulers of the people, but also a constant desire to practise 
forbearance on the part of both the rulers and the ruled. In 
these circumstances the word " government " does not mean 
one body of people domineering over another body, but all 
classes of minds governing themselves by the dictates of 
neighbourly love as interpreted by time-honoured customs. 

The early history of man proves that social relationships 



14 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

originally rested on consanguinity, common language, and 
common worship, and that any new question which did not 
come within the purview of an existing custom had to be 
decided by the unanimous consent of all the heads of families 
which formed the brotherhood. In the West also this rule 
of unanimity prevailed in ancient times in the settlement of 
public questions, and a survival of it in the present day may 
be seen in trial by jury. But the ties of blood, language, 
and worship, which conduce to unity of sentiment and action, 
become ineffective for that end when foreign ideals have been 
allowed to take root in the minds of the people. The intro- 
duction of strange principles in a homogeneous community 
leads to the suppression or modification of established modes 
of thought and the espousal of new opinions. In this conflict 
of thought it is impossible to determine questions affecting 
the welfare of the mixed people by the rule of unanimity, 
which is founded on love. A new rule was necessary for the 
adjustment of differences arising in a polity composed of 
heterogeneous masses and interests, and the rough and ready 
rule of majority, based on the force of members, was chosen. 
The two rules are different in kind. Unanimity involves 
mutual concession, but the majority in agreement means the 
rejection of the wishes of the minority. The former rule 
gives satisfaction all round and broadens love in the heart; 
but the latter quenches love and breeds resentment in the 
party defeated. To persons who prize the spiritual qualities 
of self-effacement, patience, and forbearance, the rule of 
majority is positively unholy, desecrating ; but it looks natural 
to those who are not spiritual-minded, and to those who have 
backslidden from spirituality to secularity. And what is meant 
by the secularisation of politics ? A polity which lives for 
this world only, and is ever in a hurry to wield power and 
secure for itself the perishable things of sensuous life by short 
cuts, esteeming it a virtue to be self-assertive, and to bawl, 
hustle, and smash in order to have its own way against the 
cherished desires and needs of others, is said to be " secularised," 



MISCARRIAGE OF LIFE IN THE WEST 15 

Political progress in the West means nothing more than 
the victories of majorities over minorities in parliament, diet, 
or senate. It does not mean a series of well-chosen measures 
for the development of righteousness and the expansion of 
love in the individual. Many of the triumphs of majorities 
have indeed abated or suppressed tyranny and other forms of 
abuse of political power, but who can tell how many blessings 
have been lost to the world by the defeat of minorities? It is 
usual to speak highly of the Reform Act of 1832, but for 
some years past it has been seen to be the means by which the 
government of the empire is passing into the hands of common 
labourers, and the cause of many a coming storm in the sea of 
socialism. Some fifty years earlier than the Reform Act 
happened the French Revolution, which secured for the masses 
what it called " political equality." The true meaning of this 
expression is little known. It denotes the idea that one 
human body is as good as another, that the body of a prime 
minister is no better than that of his coachman or footman. 
It ignores the deeper truth that minds in human bodies are 
really of different orders of intelligence and ability, and that 
therefore it is wrong, in the nature of things, to invest one 
order of minds with the work which is suitable only to another 
order. In a family it is the parents who must rule, because 
their minds see further and are less influenced by currents of 
selfishness or other disturbing factors than the minds of their 
children. Even so, in the government of a polity, it is the 
most enlightened and capable minds that should be entrusted 
with the power of directing its affairs. It is ruinous in the 
highest degree to invite the unlearned, the fickle, the impatient, 
and the irascible, who form the majority of the world, either 
to rule the country or to elect representatives for that purpose. 
Only those who are behind the scenes know the ingenious, 
costly, and difficult contrivances by which the evils and dangers 
of popular government are sought to be minimised or averted, 
by which the enfranchised populace are attempted to be 
" snared and taken " by a comparatively small body of men 



16 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

who are actuated by public spirit, or who believe themselves 
to be fit to guide the people and represent their interests in 
parliament. The work of teaching the people the nature of 
the public questions as they rise from time to time, and the 
work of carrying them safely to the poll, involve most anxious 
thought, strenuous labour, and heavy expenditure of money on 
the part of this small body of men, who employ thousands of 
agents to go among, and convert, the people. Thus arises the 
enthralling game of politics in the West. The aim of each 
player is to make his party take up his cry, and the aim of 
each party is to make the majority of the people take up that 
cry. When that is achieved, the ruling ministers who form 
the government are expected to give effect to the wishes of 
the majority by legislative enactment or executive order ; and 
if they do not, they should resign office and make room for 
another ministry. In this wise is maintained the never-ending 
political drama. It is exciting, and often amusing, and is 
commonly believed to be a struggle for the liberty of the 
people. 

"The great characteristic of modern politics," said Mr 
W. E. H. Lecky, " is the struggle for political liberty in its 
widest sense the desire to make the will of the people the 
basis of the government the conviction that a nation has a 
right to alter a government that opposes its sentiment." 
But surely the will of the people is not the will of a little 
more than half its number ; nor can the liberty of the majority, 
which involves the slavery of the minority, be justly called 
political liberty. It is this strange medley of freedom and 
bondage which stands proudly in the West for political 
progress. One of its worst features is that the middle and the 
cultured classes, who form the most sensible part of the 
nation, are without political power owing to their smallness in 
number. " They have as little power now," said Mr Walter 
Bagehot, " as they had before 1832 ; and the only difference is 
that before 1832 they were ruled by those richer than them- 
selves, and now they are ruled by those poorer." If they 



MISCARRIAGE OF LIFE IN THE WEST 17 

desire for legislative or municipal power, they must woo and 
win the populace in the way the latter like, and that way is 
the profane way that sickens the gentle and the righteous. 

It is not difficult now to see the true meaning of the 
saying that we are living in an age of progress. It simply 
means we are living in an age which, for want of proper judg- 
ment and poise, believes in change of any kind as a sure 
remedy for the tedium of work and idleness, and whose 
appetite is therefore keenly set on all those mechanical im- 
provements which have been invented from day to day for 
facilitating business or amusement. Such an age, having no 
adequate conception of the evils of luxury or of the greatness 
of work for its own sake, takes no pains to restrain the senses 
when they distract the mind, or to abate the play of the 
imagination as a means of conserving one's energy. It does 
not know the truth that sensuousness unfits the mind for its 
proper work of uplifting the soul. It claims to make us 
better to-day than we were yesterday, and to make us better 
to-morrow than we are to-day ; but that is only better in food, 
raiment, wealth, household furniture, equipage, social position, 
and rank, to be better in all that relates to the glorification 
of the perishable body, but not in anything that conduces to 
the purity of the eternal spirit. In this betterment of the 
body, the poor are striving hard to keep pace with the middle 
classes, the middle classes with the richer classes, the rich man 
with the millionaire, and the millionaire with the multi- 
millionaire. This feverish desire to earn more and spend more 
on the feeding and dressing of the body, and supplying it and 
the senses with every object of gratification, is robbing all 
classes of the people, from the highest to the lowest, of that 
peace of mind and poise which are essential to the safety of the 
body, as well as of the spirit. The nervous restlessness which 
characterises life in Western cities is not the mark of true 
progress or sound civilisation. This is felt to be so by the 
cultured few in those very cities, who are puzzled and amazed 

at the " up-to-date " craze, which is slowly but surely quench- 
VOL. VII. No. 1. 2 



18 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

ing the spirit, and so ruining the most valuable asset alike of 
the individual and the nation. 

It is folly to call this wide expansion of sensuousness and 
worldliness an Age of Progress. Sages declare that cities get 
filled with the rural population when love of finery and amuse- 
ment dominate the minds of the people. The flight of the 
peasantry from agricultural holdings into towns, known 
already to be too full of the unemployed and unemployable, is 
like the rush of insects into a bonfire lit in a tropical night, 
and affords positive proof that the spread of sensuous ideals is 
breaking up the very foundations of society. The steady back- 
sliding of every class into deeper depths of worldliness, irre- 
ligion, and frivolity, is utterly inconsistent with true progress 
or true civilisation, by which is meant the ideas and practices 
which consciously uplift a nation from the corruptions of 
sensuousness and unrighteousness to a higher plane of life, 
where reverence for the spirit and its careful extrication from 
the mazes of worldliness are the chief aims of human 

endeavour. 

P. RAMANATHAN. 

COLOMBO, CEYLON. 



A CHINESE STATESMAN'S VIEW 
OF RELIGION. 

CHARLES JOHNSTON, 

Late Bengal Civil Service. 

BY a piece of good fortune I was able, not long ago, to discuss 
many aspects of life and religion with his Excellency Kang 
Yu Wei. Let me try to indicate the position of this dis- 
tinguished man, who is one of the foremost living Orientals. 

Those who followed events in China during the critical 
period just before the "Boxer" outbreak of 1900 will 
remember that the young Emperor Kuang-su had adopted 
a very liberal programme, and had announced his wish to do 
for China what the Emperor Mutsuhito and the Elder States- 
men had done for Japan. The age-old system of Civil 
Service Examinations based on the Confucian Classics was 
to be abolished, to make way for modern methods. The 
countless loopholes for corruption, which made the Chinese 
government a system of bribery, were to be closed. Modern 
science was to take root at the very doors of the Forbidden 
City. A new Medical College was to oust the ancient Chinese 
quackery, with its charms and simples. And the Six Boards, 
the very stronghold of Chinese conservatism, were to be done 
away with, a modern Cabinet being created in their stead. 
Warm admiration for Japan was expressed, and it was even 
rumoured that the Emperor Kuang-su wished to invite Marquis 
Ito to Pekin, to advise him in the renovation of China. 

Then came a spectacular transformation. A new edict 

19 



20 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

announced that the Emperor Kuang-su, conscious of his youth 
and inexperience, had begged his titular mother, the Empress 
Dowager, to aid him with her wise counsel and long experi- 
ence. It was added, very significantly, that the recent decrees 
abolishing the Six Boards, the old Civil Service, and the tradi- 
tional system of quackery, and establishing fiscal reforms and a 
new Medical College, were withdrawn, and that China would 
henceforth continue in the ancient ways wherein she had walked 
so long, as the most civilised nation in the world. Immediately 
after this new edict, the power of the reactionaries, with Prince 
Tuan at their head, began to be felt increasingly ; the attitude 
towards " foreign devils " became more and more menacing, 
till the final explosion at Taku and Pekin, in the early summer 
of 1900. 

So much was visible from the front. Had we been able 
to go behind the scenes, to watch the secret springs of action 
in the Forbidden City, we should have seen the genius of the 
first transformation at work : a Cantonese by birth, a man of 
genius, who had rapidly attained the highest official positions 
in the state, and had finally gained the fullest confidence of 
the youthful Emperor Kuang-su. This Mentor, taking Japan 
as his text, convinced Kuang-su that there was no salvation 
for China in the old ostrich-like methods of obscurantism and 
seclusion ; that the Manchu bowmen could not withstand 
Maxim guns. He helped Kuang-su to see that only on 
modern principles of effectiveness, of real education and real 
work, could China hope to hold her own in the commonwealth 
of nations ; and that, if she really espoused these principles, 
and heartily applied them, she might one day become one of 
the greatest of nations. 

Under the wise guidance of this Cantonese Mentor, one 
reform after another was conceived and outlined, and the 
weak places in China's armour were laid bare. But such 
reforms as these had hosts of violent enemies, and the storm 
of opposition grew steadily blacker, until the Empress Dowager, 
Tszu-Hszi, the splendid and savage old woman who was well 



A CHINESE STATESMAN'S RELIGION 21 

nicknamed " the only man in China," came like the blind fury 
with the abhorred shears to slit the thin-spun life of the too 
venturesome Cantonese reformer. A sudden flight, an almost 
miraculous escape on a British warship, and Kang Yu Wei 
fled from China, with a price on his head. This is what might 
have been seen behind the scenes during that sudden and 
spectacular transformation. 

From the day of his flight, Kang Yu Wei has toiled 
unceasingly for the redemption of his motherland, travelling 
through many countries, building up reform organisations 
among the most influential Chinamen throughout the world ; 
instructing young men in his ideals ; everywhere the idol of 
young China; dauntless, cheerful-hearted, indefatigable, toil- 
ing day and night, yet maintaining always the detachment 
and aloofness of the true philosopher. Through all his 
wanderings, Kang Yu Wei has always kept in touch with 
the young Emperor Kuang-su ; and now that the long life 
of the Dowager Empress is visibly drawing to a close, the 
chance of his return, once more to direct the policy of his 
vast motherland, grows daily greater. Kang Yu Wei may be 
lifted in a day to the most influential position in the largest 
and oldest of the family of nations. His ideals, his beliefs, 
his prejudices even, may become determining factors in world 
politics. 

This is hardly the place to speak of the details of his 
policy, which Kang Yu Wei was good enough to explain at 
some length ; but perhaps I may be pardoned if I add a 
personal touch, as it well illustrates this gifted man's mood 
and temper. Kang Yu Wei is no wild-eyed revolutionary. 
On the contrary, he is moderate, urbane, gentle, full of humour, 
and deeply religious in inspiration. When so many Orientals 
have adopted Western dress, Kang Yu Wei is still a typical 
Chinaman. He wears the gold-laced jacket, and the high 
mandarin's cap with coral button ; a blue silk skirt and em- 
broidered Chinese slippers complete the portrait. There is 
something even more Oriental, in the best sense, in the 



22 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

mobility and refinement of his face, in the delicate vivacity of 
his hands, and in his courtly and sympathetic manners. 

After we had spoken of the regeneration of China, her 
need of an enlightened industrialism, of a modern fleet and 
army, the conversation turned to religion. Kang Yu Wei 
declared that he had the spiritual revival of China even more 
at heart than her political regeneration. He declared that he 
had always been a close student of religions ; that he had 
studied and translated the two thousand texts of Buddhism ; 
and that he found the great humane principles of religion in 
Buddhism and Christianity alike. He further told me that he 
always visited in the spirit of a pilgrim the centres or shrines 
of religious tradition ; that he had sought relics of Martin 
Luther at Eisenach ; and that, on a recent visit to Spain, he 
found in a monastery near Toledo much the same spirit of 
devout silence that had struck him in the lamaseries of Tibet. 

This brief talk suggested so many interesting problems, 
that I gladly took advantage of another opportunity to talk 
of religion with this Chinese man of genius, and some of the 
things which he said on that occasion I shall now try to 
record. 

I asked Kang Yu Wei, who has studied the Gospels pro- 
foundly, what seems to him the most striking quality in the 
character of Jesus. He answered, somewhat to my surprise, 
as we generally lay the emphasis elsewhere, that what appealed 
to him most, in the personality of Jesus, was his courage the 
manliness which could so quietly and dauntlessly face the 
hatred of so many of his fellow-countrymen, the fierce enmity 
of the powerful Pharisees, and, above all, the certainty of 
death, and of the outward failure of his mission ; the courage 
which undertook a work so constructive, the valour which 
could make, and could ask from others, such large sacrifices. 
The positive attitude of authority and power, maintained by 
one who was, outwardly, a homeless wanderer, seemed to Kang 
Yu Wei the dominant note in the character of Jesus. His 
courage stood first ; next to courage came his love. And 



A CHINESE STATESMAN'S RELIGION 23 

Kang Yu Wei had been deeply impressed by the fact that the 
love of Jesus, profound, abundant, and all-embracing as it was, 
was yet wholly free from weakness and sentimentalism ; could, 
indeed, be terribly stern on occasion, as when he scourged the 
money-changers from the Temple. 

The question of the miracles naturally came up. Kang 
Yu Wei declared that he believed that the accounts of them 
were true, and added that the East had always had the tradi- 
tion of miraculous power associated with great holiness. In 
his view, Jesus had used his spiritual powers to work what we 
call miracles, in order to fix the attention of his disciples and 
the multitudes on his spiritual message : " Believe me that I 
am in the Father, and the Father in me : or else believe me 
for the very works' sake." Kang Yu Wei made a comparison 
with the miracles attributed to Buddha, who, at the beginning 
of his mission, while talking to his disciples in a cave, produced 
the form of a serpent, which he then took in his hands, and 
caused to vanish. Miracles of healing, such as restoring sight 
to the blind, are also attributed to the Buddha. 

Further, Kang Yu Wei laid special stress on the way in 
which the teaching and personality of Jesus have woven them- 
selves into the fabric of Western history, as the most potent 
factor in the development of Christendom. He spoke especi- 
ally of the work of Clovis, and of the dramatic scene in the 
cathedral of Rheims, which in a certain sense was the birthday 
of modern Europe. He was also profoundly conscious of the 
part played by the Church in the culture of the Latin nations ; 
and we have already seen that he was an interested student of 
the life-work of Martin Luther. So that we may say that 
Kang Yu Wei recognised that a large part in the development 
of Western history, of the modern state with its ideas of civil 
rights, of individual liberty, of humanity, is to be attributed 
to the personality and teaching of Jesus, and this quite in- 
dependently of our view of his spiritual standing. Jesus is 
the greatest single factor in the development of the Western 
world. 



24 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

At this point in our talk, a situation arose which had a 
strong element of humour. As we had just discussed the 
historical and even the political aspects of the work of Jesus, 
it was natural that I should seek to learn Kang Yu Wei's 
views of its more spiritual sides. Therefore I asked him what 
he thought of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. 
He looked at me rather keenly before replying ; and I think 
that, behind the urbane and courteous countenance of the 
statesman, there was something of the reticence of the Oriental, 
when confronted by the pushing, inquiring, and very often 
sneering " foreign devil." The good gentleman did not wish 
to have his shrines rashly invaded. 

My impression that his thought was running in some such 
channel was strengthened by his question : " What do you 
yourself think about the soul's immortality ? " 

I was able to reply that I held immortality to be the great 
and illuminating central truth in life ; that which gave meaning 
and power to all the rest. And one detected something like 
a delicate expression of relief and satisfaction pass over the 
mobile, gifted, strong face of the Chinese statesman. 

Thereupon he began to unfold to me his own view, putting 
his conclusions rather in the form of question and speculation ; 
yet one could see that he held quite clearly and firmly to these 
lightly indicated ideas. If I mistake not, Kang Yu Wei, 
while believing firmly in the immortality of the soul, does not 
believe that all men are equally immortal ; that all men have 
only to pass through physical death, in order to enter the 
ranks of the immortals. He believes rather, I convinced 
myself, that immortality is something to be attained, some- 
thing to be won, and something which, in the full sense, all 
men cannot be said to win. He spoke of strong souls and 
weak souls ; of souls made strong by courage and sacrifice, 
by daring and unselfish work for others ; souls that soar on 
wings of high attainment into the clearer air of spiritual 
being ; of such souls as these, he believes that conscious im- 
mortal life after death is the reward. On the other hand, 



A CHINESE STATESMAN'S RELIGION 25 

there are weak, cowardly, indifferent souls, who are to be 
thought of as rather prone upon the earth ; and the full 
measure of immortality is not for these. 

I was struck by the curious resemblance of this belief to 
that expressed by Goethe, who also held that not all souls are 
equally immortal ; that full immortality is the prize and crown 
of heroic endeavour, of noble virtue, of undaunted self-sacrifice ; 
that the spiritual body must grow, so to speak, to the full 
immortal stature. After all, does not St Paul suggest the 
same idea, in the famous fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle 
to the Corinthians ? " It is sown in weakness, it is raised in 
strength ; it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption ; 
it is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body." 

This resemblance to the view of Goethe suggested another 
question. Goethe believed in immortality, not only in the 
future, but in the past, and declared that not only did he hope 
to live again, and live many times, but that he believed he had 
lived many times in the past ; and that his strong sympathy 
for certain periods of imperial Rome was a half-conscious 
reminiscence carried over from a former life. In the same 
way, Goethe suggested that intuitive sympathy and love for 
certain people may be carried over from another life, may be the 
picking up of threads spun long before. 

Therefore I asked Kang Yu Wei whether he also believed 
in previous existence, and in the possibility of a memory of 
former times, so that we come " not in entire forgetfulness." 
Once more there was the quick glance of inquiry, lest the 
foreigner might heedlessly step on consecrated ground. But 
this time the reassurance was instant. Yes, Kang Yu Wei did 
believe that the soul must in some sense be immortal in the 
past as in the future ; that we must struggle toward the goal 
of fully conscious immortality through a long series of experi- 
ences, in which battle after battle must be waged, victory after 
victory painfully won. As to memory of past experiences and 
former lives, Kang Yu Wei seemed to associate it with the 
growth of the soul. Strong, valiant souls, which have grown 



26 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

to full stature and " attained," may, in his view, gain also a full 
memory of the past ; and there must be all degrees, through 
partial and shadowy reminiscence, down to complete forgetful- 
ness and mere oblivion. 

So much as to the chief matters of speculation. We spoke 
also more particularly of China and her religious life. As a 
high official who had gained the Chinese degrees, it need 
not be said that Kang Yu Wei was thoroughly familiar 
with the texts of Confucianism. His knowledge, indeed, has 
grown to warm enthusiasm, and he insists that the existence 
of God and the immortality of the soul are cardinal doctrines 
of the Confucian system. I was greatly surprised to find that 
his dislike for Lao-Tze and the Tao Teh King seems as marked 
as his love and admiration for Confucius. He insists that the 
Taoist texts are either mistranslated or not yet translated at 
all, and that the Western view of this teacher is quite erroneous. 
Lao-Tze, he said, was an obscurantist, who taught that the 
people should be kept in ignorance, in order that they might 
be the more easily governed. I fancied that he almost identi- 
fied Lao-Tze with certain reactionary forces at Pekin in our 
own day. 

These, in brief, are the views which I was so fortunate as 
to be able to glean from the Chinese statesman who may yet 
be destined to play a leading part on the world's stage. I 
think they are as reassuring as is his personality ; and I can 
well believe him when he says that he would willingly renounce 
the stormy and perilous life of a reformer for the quiet paths 
of religion and philosophy, were it not that he feels drawn to 
the more arduous task by a strong sense of duty and moral 
obligation. There is much of sacrifice in his life. Let us 
hope that the future may bring him the reward he covets, of 
successful achievement for others. 

CHARLES JOHNSTON. 

NEW YORK. 



THE MOSLEM TRADITION OF JESUS' 
SECOND VISIT ON EARTH. 

CAPTAIN F. W. VON HERBERT. 

WHEN, as a youngster of seventeen, I was in the Turkish 
service, I loved to have theological discussions with brother- 
officers of my age, like me fresh from school. In the course of 
these the remark was often hurled at me : " When your Jesus 
comes again " such and such a thing will happen ; so often, 
by such widely different men, with such assertiveness and force 
of conviction, as gave me seriously to think thus : These 
fellows are not drawing on their imagination, are not quoting 
arguments of their own, but are referring to something that 
exists already in their creed, or their literature, or their text- 
books, or their traditions. Later in the campaign (1877) I 
heard, round the camp-fire, the habitual story-teller of a com- 
pany of infantry relate his version of the Second Coming of 
Issa, and I then learnt that many versions of the same story 
were afloat amongst Moslems of all countries. This version, 
by the way, was grotesque and obscene, and is unfit for 
publication in Christian countries. Its Issa was a feeble- 
minded fool, who, after having tried all other lands, returns to 
Turkey as the only soil congenial to him, the only place where 
idiots are still held in superstitious veneration, instead of being 
locked up in asylums. 

Since then I have travelled repeatedly and extensively in 
Turkey, both European and Asiatic. Speaking Turkish, I 
have made it my business to make friends of Turks of all 
classes. I have paid special attention to public story-tellers, a 

27 



28 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

class fast dying out. In particular, I have inquired carefully 
into the Issa legends. This is the result of my inquiries : 

The Turks owe the legend to the Seljuks, as they owe to 
them many other things for instance, names, nursery-rhymes, 
fables, bogeys and other superstitions, lullabies and cradle- 
songs, fairy tales, not to mention matters pertaining to archi- 
tecture, public worship, ceremonial, and government. The idea 
that Jesus will at some future time revisit this earth, and will 
select Turkey as the place of His abode, after having tried in 
vain all those countries whose inhabitants profess His name, 
dates thus from the thirteenth century. But up to the middle 
of the nineteenth century this was only an idea, at the most a 
short fable ; it became a tale or legend when railways were 
first built in Western countries. Presumably the notion of 
Jesus encountering one of those rushing monsters, unknown 
to Him, gave professional story-tellers, up to two decades ago 
the only carriers of Turkish folklore, a splendid motif for a new 
and striking tale, and they hung it on to the peg of the already 
existing Issa fable. This was the birth of the modern legend 
of the Second Coming of Issa. Be it specially noted that the 
legend was in existence some forty years before European 
and American writers used an imaginary revisit of Jesus 
as a theme for sensational books. As I said before, I 
heard a complete and lengthy version in 1877. Thus the 
Turks have not been influenced in the general idea of the 
legend by Christian writers. 

There are many versions of this legend probably some 
hundreds. They have the idea in common that Jesus chooses 
Turkey, as the only country which He recognises, after having 
turned in horror or disgust from every Christian country. 
Naturally, they vary much in detail, for the details are left to 
the knowledge of Western countries and customs possessed by 
the narrator, be he story-teller, priest, teacher, or ordinary 
village-gossip. Thus, in 1907, I heard of a version in which 
European ladies still wore crinolines, and the time of action 
was supposed to be that same year! The reason of this 



THE SECOND COMING OF ISSA 29 

anachronism was simply that the narrator, unable to read 
Latin characters and figures, had come across a French illus- 
trated book of the year 1860. Again, in another, also recent, 
version Occidentals are presumed to be unacquainted with 
tobacco, simply because they are unacquainted with the 
narghile ! 

But the most vital difference is exhibited in the character 
of Issa. Sometimes, as in the version here given, Issa is the 
Jesus of the Bible simple, trusting, childlike, loving all men, 
ever ready to forgive, yet stern and uncompromising at rare 
moments, when faith or principle is involved ; above all, He is 
the friend of the poor and oppressed. In parenthesis : in the 
version here given, an absurd, though not irreverent, love- 
episode is omitted. In other versions Issa is militant, aggres- 
sive, always making enemies. In yet others He is, as already 
mentioned, a good-natured imbecile. In yet others He is a 
supernatural Being pure and simple, without human attri- 
butes, a glorified " Jin " of old. In yet others He is simply 
the saint and minor prophet of Moslem theology. 

I acquired the version here given in the following wise : 
A public story-teller told it in a small cafe' on the outskirts of 
Smyrna during Ramazan (October) 1906, I being present. 
Present was also a priest, whose acquaintance I subsequently 
made, a week or two later. He was a well-informed man, had 
once travelled in Roumania and Austria, had read European 
history, and was a voracious reader of Greek and Turkish 
newspapers. He repeated the story to me, and, so far as I 
could remember, it differed from that of the public reciter only 
in unimportant details. He knew the story well, had heard it 
many times, and I begged him to reproduce the reciter's own 
words as much as possible. This he promised to do, but I 
cannot help thinking that he introduced a few details of his 
own knowledge of Western life and manners, of which know- 
ledge he was very proud. A fortnight later I made, from 
memory, a rough translation, which I revised and copied six 
months afterwards. 



30 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

With one exception, I have never seen any version of the 
Issa legend in print or manuscript, nor have I heard of any. 
The exception is this : During my last visit to Turkey I bought 
a large number (eighty or more) of Turkish school-books, first 
readers and the like. In one of them appeared a brief version, 
less than a small page in length, of Issa's second coming and 
choice of Turkey. It was very bald and rather childish. Un- 
fortunately, I did not keep a list of the titles, etc., of those 
books. On my journey home my steamer ran on the rocks, 
during a fog, on the coast of Asia Minor, and in the turmoil 
of salvage part of my luggage, including my box of books, 
was lost or stolen. I have since re-bought a large number of 
Turkish school-books ; but this particular book I have not yet 
found again. 

To conclude: The Takhtajis, a tribe which inhabits the 
peninsula which forms the northern horn of the Bay of 
Smyrna, are generally held to be descendants of the Seljuks. 
They have a curious annual festival, from which strangers (even 
Moslems) are jealously excluded. I have never met anyone 
who had succeeded in being present, though many, including 
myself, have tried ; but it is a common belief among Moslems 
that an allegorical representation of Issa's Second Coming forms 
part of the ceremonial. This is too striking to be a mere 
coincidence. In parenthesis : so secretive is this tribe that 
my patient inquiries have not even elicited their true name, 
for the appellation Takhtajis, meaning Woodcutters, is that 
given to them by the Turks, by reason of their occupation. 
It is probably here that some future inquirer will find reliable 
data as to the origin of the Turkish Issa legend. 

THE LEGEND. 

Nearly two thousand years have passed since Issa on 
whom be peace ! wandered in the richest province of our 
mighty empire and preached peace on earth, goodwill to men, 
concord among nations, practising all that he taught in his 
own person and his own life, and thus preparing the way for a 



THE SECOND COMING OF ISSA 31 

greater who came, six centuries after him, to finish and to 
crown the sublime edifice of a universal faith : when he be- 
thought himself to visit once again this fair earth, for whose 
inhabitants he had laid down his life and sealed his life's work 

with his blood. 

I. 

Issa, in the garb of a labouring man, walked along a main 
road which led into a flourishing city of the German empire. 
The road was deserted ; there were no wayfarers in sight. 
And at this Issa was much astonished ; for in his time roads 
leading into cities were crowded on sunny mornings with men 
whom their vocations took to town from the villages, and with 
those who, having already terminated their business in the 
markets, returned to their peaceful homesteads. Mules, asses, 
horses, camels, carrying burdens to and fro, carts, poor men 
with loads on their backs, used to throng the roads which 
Cgesar's soldiers and hirelings had made. But here was soli- 
tude, though over the horizon hung a heavy black cloud, 
betokening many houses in which, no doubt, countless women 
prepared the midday meal against their masters' return from 
field or workshop. 

Issa walked on towards the city, not comprehending. For 
he was mortal man again for a little while, with man's limited 
understanding. 

He that had come after Issa, God's own Prophet, had 
counselled him to walk on earth in the shape and the garb of a 
rich and mighty person, for the Prophet knew that a portion of 
humanity had declined to receive his teaching, and was in the 
coils of unbelief and cruelty and spiritual darkness, and in the 
habit of worshipping those who owned many lands and worldly 
goods. But Issa, simple and childlike as of yore, with his 
sublime belief in the inherent goodness of the human race, 
had made reply and said : " I was despised and rejected, 
sorrowful and acquainted with grief; I was a homeless 
wanderer ; the poor were my friends and little children my 
comfort ; and my message was for the humble and the heavy- 



32 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

laden. I shall not give the lie to my teaching and my life ; I 
shall not turn my back on the equals and successors of those 
who once befriended me." And thus Issa was again an out- 
cast among men, lonely as that awful forsakenness in which he 
had prayed in the garden of El Kuds for deliverance from the 
coming hour of terror and torment and infamous death. 

Suddenly Issa heard behind him a great noise, a noise of 
horror and devilry, as of thunder and metal, and rushing whirl- 
wind, and a thousand clanking chains, with the voice of a 
shrieking fiend above the infernal din. 

He turned round and beheld, on a raised path running 
parallel to the road a hideous path of geometrical exactness, 
curiously beset with tall, cord-connected poles a succession 
of iron chariots of ugly shape and colour ; in front of the long 
clanging line, a shrieking, fire-spitting, smoke-vomiting black 
monster. And this devilish procession was rushing towards 
the city with a speed compared to which the speed of the 
swiftest Roman war-chariot was but as a snail's pace. The 
earth shook, the sweet morning air was poisoned, the sun was 
obscured by the black monster's infamous exhalations, and 
flocks of birds were startled from the meadows and flew away 
in dismay. The cars had regular openings in their sides, and 
through these Issa beheld in a lightning glance, as this devil's 
contrivance thundered by, crowds of human beings in hideous 
attire. 

The thing was gone in the twinkling of an eye, contracting 
its shape until it became a mere black speck in the fair land- 
scape. The birds returned to their worms, and God's wind 
dispersed the smoke and the stench. But earth was not 
the same to Issa ; it seemed to him that a foul disease had 
left on it a vile and poisonous sore. And then Issa, looking 
round to refresh himself by the sights and sounds and scents 
of nature, noticed that the fields were uncultivated and pro- 
duced apparently nothing but rank grass, to consume which 
there seemed to be no cattle or beasts of burden only three 
or four miscoloured sheep. 



THE SECOND COMING OF ISSA 33 

But God, taking compassion upon His beloved saint's 
perplexity, sent him one of the angels whose painful duty it 
is to record the doings of unbelievers. And the angel 
whispered into Issa's ear : 

" This is the manner in which these men convey them- 
selves from place to place an invention of the devil. This is 
why the highroads are deserted. This is why men congregate 
in huge, ugly cities. This is why fruitful fields are unculti- 
vated, fair gardens unweeded, pretty villages forsaken. This 
is why unbelievers have to obtain their daily sustenance from 
far countries, over seas which in thy time were deemed 
endless countries where there are still men, simple and 
grateful, who gather the kindly fruits of the earth." 

Sadly Issa walked on and came to the city. He was 
hungry and thirsty and tired, and he bethought himself to 
enter a labourer's cottage and salute the master and claim the 
wanderer's privilege a morsel of bread, a drink of spring- 
water, a basin wherein to wash his aching feet. But in vain 
was he looking for a humble house in the door of which should 
stand a man with a kindly countenance. For all the buildings 
were tall and big and grim, like prisons, and all the people 
seemed to be in a hurry and had anxious faces, many cruel 
and sinister, many callous, many careworn and sad. Not one 
happy countenance was to be seen even the children sped 
along the streets as if driven with whips, carrying heavy 
satchels, and appearing to be intent on some pressing and 
serious business. 

Issa walked on, and presently he came to a vast space, 
surrounded by gorgeous edifices. A multitude had assembled 
therein, mostly men in garments like his own, and they 
appeared to be listening to an orator who stood on the steps 
leading to the statue of some ill-shapen god or hero. 

The orator thundered forth with a great voice and waved 
his arms, and sweat was on his brow ; and the multitude 
swayed to and fro, and presently it shouted frantically. And 

then, lo ! many men with swords, some afoot, some on prancing 
VOL. VII. No. 1. 3 



34 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

horses, all garbed alike in sombre blue and wearing ugly hats 
with spikes, appeared from the neighbouring streets, where 
they had lain in ambush, drew their swords and made a fierce 
attack upon the multitude, which seemed to carry no arms. 
And in the unequal combat the multitude was beaten back 
and left many behind prostrate, over whose bodies the horse- 
men rode with joyful faces and shouts of glee and triumph ; 
and the armed men afoot pursued the vanquished ones, even 
up the stairs leading to houses, and into the doors, and down 
the steps into dark cellars, and they hacked at them with their 
swords, and gloried when they had cut down a woman or a 
child, or some aged and defenceless person. 

Issa fled from the terrible sight, and when he came to a 
quieter street he lifted up his countenance and prayed for 
enlightenment. And immediately the angel was by his side 
and said : 

" The men who listened to the orator are workmen toiling 
in hellish dens full of inventions of the devil for wages which 
will not buy a sufficiency of bread for their children, so that 
a few rich might become yet richer. The orator is one of the 
leaders of the labouring men, and he exhorted them to be brave 
and strong and united. The soldiers are the guardians of the 
city, who are bribed by the rich ones to cut down and mutilate 
and imprison all such as desire to ameliorate their sad existence. 
And, most wonderful thing of all, the teaching of that orator 
is thine when thou didst walk the earth : the equality of all 
before God, community of goods, mutual help, charity, and 
the claim of everyone that worketh to daily bread, shelter, and 
a peaceful life for himself and his children." 

Issa covered his face with his hands and prayed. And when 
light and comfort had come to him from on high he spoke : 

" This is not the country which I would fain choose for my 
second Advent. Here I know scarce the earth and the human 
race again." 

And while he yet spoke soldiers with swords appeared at 
the end of the street and rushed towards him to seize and slay 



THE SECOND COMING OF ISSA 35 

him, for to them he was but one of a multitude to be beaten 
and tormented and cast into prison. 

But the angel took Issa's hand, and when the men with 
swords came to the spot where he had stood they found no- 
body. And after they had marvelled greatly, they proceeded 
to seek other unarmed victims ; for they were mighty heroes, 
and greatly daring whenever they encountered those who 
could not defend themselves. 

II. 

Issa stood in a dirty, poverty-stricken village of the empire 
of the Russians. In the open doors of the hovels crouched 
shapes which he failed to recognise at first as human beings : 
grimy skeletons, ragged and half naked, their faces pain-drawn, 
their eyes lustreless, their long hair unkempt. The bony hands 
were folded, and the thin lips muttered prayers to an idolatrous 
god who did not and could not hear. 

There was a famine in the land there is nearly always a 
famine in that land and Issa, with his infinite compassion for 
human suffering, was anxious to help those who could not 
help themselves, in whose torture and starvation the "rich and 
mighty ones of the country gloried. 

Issa assumed the garb of a man from the neighbouring 
market-town, and when the people beheld him they crawled 
towards him they were too weak to walk upright and knelt 
before him and cried for bread. So Issa lifted his eyes to 
heaven and prayed for power to help the starving ones, and 
God and His Prophet heard him. And when full assurance 
had come to him he said : 

" Go ye to yonder barn and ye will find wherewith to feed 
yourselves and your little ones." 

So the people went, as best they could, and found loaves 
and wheaten cakes, fruit and flour, eggs and meat, jars of milk 
and skins of clear water, enough for the whole village and to 
spare for the morrow and the day after, and they ate and 
were filled. 



36 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

But when they had rested and regained strength a little, 
they came back to Issa, angry and menacing, and with one 
accord they demanded that he should give them firewater. 

Issa comprehended not ; but the angel was at his side and 
whispered : 

" Firewater is an invention of the devil, which these people 
drink, which benumbeth their senses, maketh them mad, and 
causeth them to do vile deeds." 

So Issa made answer to them and said : 

" What would ye do with this firewater ? For if ye drink 
it, the devil will enter into your bodies." 

The people cried : 

" We want to have courage to burn the palace in which 
liveth the lord of this land, and to slay him, his wife and his 
children, his guests and his servants." 

Issa answered : 

" Taught I not your fathers that ye should forgive your 
enemies, pray for them who trespass against you, and do good 
to those who have done you evil ? Why, therefore, do ye 
desire this wicked thing ? " 

The people answered him not, but shouted with a great 
voice : 

" Slay him ! Slay him ! " 

The angel seized Issa's hand, and when the people found 
him not they were sore afraid. 

So Issa came to the town, and in the main street, which 
was forsaken by all but vile-looking men on horseback, ape-like 
in appearance, clad in garments of dark green, with swords 
and lances, he found many bodies of slain men, women, 
and children. Some were still moving, groaning or crying 
feebly for help which came not ; the most part were dead, and 
terror-stricken eyes, from which light had departed, gazed up 
to a pitiless heaven. Some were horribly mangled, and not a 
few of the dead women clasped dead babies in their arms. 
Old men there were among the slain and youths in the vigour 
of years ; aged hags and handsome girls ; blood was every- 



THE SECOND COMING OF ISSA 37 

where pools on the pavement, splashes on the walls, and the 
gutters were pink. The horsemen chattered like monkeys to 
each other, and gnashed their teeth and rejoiced greatly at the 
sight of so many victims. The windows of the houses were 
closed with boards and the doors were tightly shut, and, but 
for the horsemen, this was truly a city of the dead. 

The angel spoke : 

" The slain are Jews, thy countrymen, and the slayers are 
those who profess to have adopted thy teaching and call 
themselves by thy name. I say no more." 

Issa made answer and said : 

"It is written : * My thoughts are not thy thoughts and 
My ways are not thy ways.' Woe unto this country which 
hath profaned my name, and hath made of it an instrument of 
hatred and murder towards my brethren ! But there must be 
fair realms still on this once so fair earth. Let me seek them, 
so that 1 may hasten my Advent." 

III. 

So Issa came to France. He stood in a beautiful old 
town, before a glorious edifice, the like of which there are 
but few in the world. Many centuries ago men had worked 
at it from youth to old age, and their children and children's 
children had laboured to complete it, spending their lives, 
their money, their knowledge, and their craft to make it a 
house worthy of the Lord of Hosts who was to dwell therein. 
But the door was closed, and soldiers guarded it with deadly 
weapons. 

A white-haired man in a long black robe and some young 
women who carried flowers approached the building, intent 
on entering and worshipping God in His own house ; but the 
soldiers pushed them back with rude words, and they went 
away weeping. 

The angel said to Issa : 

"The governors of this country and the priests have 
quarrelled ; it would seem that each desireth the money of 



38 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the others. So the governors have sent for the soldiers, 
who prevent the people from entering into the temples and 
worshipping God therein." 

Sadly Issa walked away and came to a great space where 
many men arid women were assembled buying and selling ; 
for it was a market-town, and this was the weekly market-day. 
Oxen and cows were there to be sold, fowl and fish, fruit and 
vegetables ; and in many other commodities much barter was 
done. There were also tents in which buffoons amused the 
people, making them to laugh and to spend much money ; 
and in other tents wild beasts, starved and sick, were kept, 
so that people might tease them with sticks, and cause them 
to roar with rage and pain. 

Issa entered one of these tents and beheld a multitude 
listening to a loud and raucous and nasal voice, which was 
singing a song full of mirth-provoking indecencies, whereat 
the people were greatly edified. Issa marvelled, for he could 
not perceive the singer, until at length it became clear to 
him that the voice proceeded from an instrument shaped like 
a great clarion, which stood on a raised platform at the end 
of the tent. 

" Behold yet another invention of the devil ! " said the 
angel. " The voice of a man, singing coarse, obscene, and 
hideous songs, is condensed and preserved in this infernal 
contrivance, and can be let loose at will." 

" I recall full well," replied Issa, sadly, " the stern and 
virile ballads of the Arab wanderers in the desert, when they 
crouched around the camp fire, after the day's hunting and 
travelling and fighting were done. And I remember the 
joyous songs of Syrian maidens at vintage or harvest, gay 
as the paean of the skylark, and melodious as the rustling 
of God's wind in the forest trees or the surging of the waves 
on the borders of the tideless sea, and their plaintive ditties 
when they sat spinning in the long dark winter evenings. So 
this is what men call song nowadays? Let us leave them. 
I would fain rest among people who can still speak of their 



THE SECOND COMING OF ISSA 39 

joys, hopes, and sorrows in the language of song, and who 
can listen spellbound when one, a master of the craft, poureth 
out his very heart before them, and attuneth them to his 
innermost thoughts and feelings, so that they rejoice with 
him at his gladness, and weep with him at his grief, and are 
better men and women for having so listened and so felt." 
And Issa departed thence. 

IV. 

Issa came to the beautiful realm of England, and stood on 
a road which led, through many lovely scenes, to the mightiest 
town of that empire the mightiest town, too, of the whole 
world. 

A fairer earthly spot had he not beheld since the days of 
his toilsome pilgrimage in our beloved Syria. Here were 
wooded hills and fertile valleys, silvery streams in which fishes 
leapt with joy, mysterious thickets in which the nightingale 
sang divinely, rich meadows studded with sturdy cattle and fat 
sheep, and O marvel ! not a few golden cornfields. And 
cottages were there, quaint, thatched, half-hidden in luxurious 
foliage, wherein dwelt men and women, poor, content, and no 
doubt kindly and hospitable. It was evening ; the west was 
lighted up in crimson and orange, and pale, pellucid green 
clouds had a margin of fire, and a russet light fell over hill 
and dale like molten gold, the last rich gift of the dying day. 

A stranger in a strange land, having not a place where to 
lay his head, and possessing none of that accursed thing called 
money with which as he had learnt by now you can buy 
anything among unbelievers, from a loaf to a man's honesty, 
from a shoe to a woman's virtue, from a house to a human 
soul, Issa proposed to knock at the door of a cottage and 
crave for a humble evening meal and a bundle of straw, to start 
with the rising sun on his search, leaving the sweet fragrance 
of his blessing behind in the house which had given him 
shelter. 

So he walked on for a little space until he came to a tiny 



40 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

cottage abutting on the road, the walls of which were almost 
covered with roses and creeping plants. Adjoining the cottage 
were great iron gates, craftily wrought, swinging between 
stone pillars crowned with images of winged monsters. Through 
the bars of the gates Issa beheld a straight broad road covered 
with yellow gravel and bordered with gorgeous flower-beds, 
and in the distance, at the end of the yellow road, a castle with 
towers. 

So Issa, who wore the garments of a wayfarer, knocked at 
the door of the cottage. A burly man opened, and Issa, 
having saluted the house and its master, humbly preferred his 
request, and proceeded to take off his dusty shoes before 
entering. But the man spoke roughly, and called Issa a thief, 
and a liar, and a vagabond, and, having sent for a soldier-man 
with a stick, had him cast into prison. 

Issa knew not what crime he had committed ; for in his 
time every wanderer, be he never so lonely and humble, was 
entitled to expect at any house that he might encounter on his 
weary journey a kindly greeting, a meal, the wherewithal to 
wash his feet, a night's shelter, and a cup of milk and a 
cheerful godspeed on starting. But in the night, when Issa 
was praying in his darksome dungeon, the angel came to 
him and explained that among unbelievers, more particularly 
in this country, England, the asking for bread or shelter without 
tendering money was considered a dreadful crime, deserving of 
long and severe punishment. 

" But the strangest thing of all," said the angel, " is that 
it is equally considered a crime, meriting cruel punishment, for 
a man possessing no money to sleep among the hedges, or 
under trees, or at the roadside, or on doorsteps." 

Issa spoke : 

" It is written : * He giveth His beloved sleep.' It is God's 
will that men should sleep. What is a man to do, who, hav- 
ing no money and being tired and worn, desireth to forget his 
sorrows in the slumber which God ordained to be the home of 
the homeless and the solace of the afflicted ? " 



THE SECOND COMING OF ISSA 41 

" He must wander on until he drops down dead, or he must 
sleep in prison, among thieves and murderers," replied the 
angel, grimly. " But let us depart hence, for if thou stayest, 
thou wilt be brought on the morrow before the judge who 
liveth in the castle. And the man of whom thou askedst 
bread is the servant of the judge, and the judge will surely 
punish thee threefold, because thou hast committed a crime 
against his hireling, whose duty it is to guard the iron gates." 

So Issa and the angel departed, and on the morrow they 
came to the great and rich city. 

Never had Issa beheld such splendour. The booths of the 
craftsmen, the silk-mercers, the purple-dyers, the fruit- vendors, 
the sellers of gold and silver ware, the money-changers, the 
slave-traders, were more splendid than the palaces of the 
mightiest in his time. Chariots with prancing horses, rolling 
on to a fair garden ; warriors in garb of crimson and gold ; 
beautiful women, bestowing kindly smiles even on wayfarers 
unknown to them, passed him in a whirling procession of such 
magnificence as might have entered the boldest dreams of King 
Solomon, on whom be peace ! But the fair scene was contami- 
nated by an evil screeching iron monster which rushed through 
the streets at lightning speed, at whose approach people fled 
in dismay, taking shelter in doorways, and covering their faces 
terror-stricken. Seated on this monster were two demons with 
vile faces, who grinned at the multitude whom their approach 
had affrighted, and who ever and anon made a hideous noise, 
like the howl of anguish of some animal in pain. 

Issa said to the faithful angel who stood beside him : 

" I would fain see other parts of this city, the quarter of the 
poor and humble ; for here I see but the rich." 

The angel seized his hand, and together they came to a vast 
hall, and with many others entered a chamber therein. And 
the chamber moved down, down into the bowels of the earth. 
When it had stopped they were in a long, ugly passage, and 
rushing into this passage came just such a procession of cars, 
drawn by a vile monster, as Issa had beheld in Germany. The 



42 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

cars were crowded with men and women, and scarce Issa found 
a place therein. Then the hellish procession rushed on into 
the darkness of earth's interior, with the speed of the light- 
ning and the noise of a thousand demons let loose. It stopped 
many times, and men came and went ; and when at last it had 
arrived at its destination, Issa and the angel entered another 
chamber, which moved upwards till they came to daylight 
again. 

Issa said : 

" I know not this earth, into the bowels of which you must 
descend if you desire to go from place to place. I know not 
this race, which despiseth the limbs given to it by God, and 
hath to employ devilish contrivances for the simple act of 
proceeding on a brief journey." 

And he shook the dust of that country from off his feet. 

V. 

Issa came to America, and stood in a great city thereof. 
Never had he beheld or imagined anything so hideous. The 
houses huge, square, forbidding, and indescribably ugly- 
reached into the heavens ; they were higher than the highest 
towers of castles and palaces in his time. They shut out the 
sunlight and the fresh air eternally ; the street was damp and 
chilly and gloomy, as if at the bottom of a well. Overhead 
were meshes and networks of cords, so that the birds could not 
descend to be fed. Through the street rushed great cars in an 
endless procession, propelled by an unseen power. The people 
hurried along in a never-ending stream, each man and woman 
alone, never two or three in cheerful conversation, each face 
anxious and flurried and sinister, as if bent on some sinful 
errand. The ceaseless din of the rushing cars, and the patter- 
ing of countless feet on the hard, cruel stone pavement, the 
coarse shouting of vile-looking urchins, who appeared to 
hawk rags on which were inscribed black characters all 
these seemed to Issa as the tumult and the devilry of a 
great battle. 



THE SECOND COMING OF ISSA 43 

The angel pointed to a vast edifice, even uglier and higher 
than its neighbours. 

" Here dwelleth a company of men," said he, " each richer 
by far than Solomon (on whom be peace !), whose vocation 
it is to render the commodities which men require for bare 
life, such as corn for bread, or oil for lamps, so dear that the 
people must die or become beggars or outcasts." 

" And why do not the governors cast such evildoers into 
the innermost prison ? " asked Issa. 

The angel made answer and said : 

" Because people have set up to themselves a god whose 
name is money, whom they worship in abject fear, against 
whose high-priests they dare not lift a finger." 

" Let us depart," said Issa. " Show thou to me one other 
spot in this country before I leave a nation whom God hath 
forsaken, because it hath forsaken God and made to itself a 
molten and graven image to worship." 

So Issa came to an open place in that country, with corn- 
fields and meadows and cattle, and a soft, warm air. A great 
multitude was assembled on a spot beyond a fair town, and in 
their midst was an Ethiopian, bound to a stake. Around the 
stake were piled up faggots of dry wood. And the people set 
fire to the faggots, and the Ethiopian was burned alive for 
their edification, dying amidst frightful agonies, whereat the 
people made a cheerful noise. And soldiers came from the 
town, carrying curious weapons. But the people had similar 
weapons, which, before the soldiers had come near enough for 
battle, they used against them. These weapons spit fire amid 
much deafening noise, and some soldiers fell down dead or 
wounded, whereupon the people fled. 

" The Ethiopian was suspected of having committed a 
crime," explained the angel. " But being black of skin, the 
people (who call themselves by thy name, O Issa ! ) took him 
away from prison, where the judge was to judge him according 
to law, and burnt him before his guilt had been proved, and 
before an opportunity had been given to him to make a defence. 



44 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

The soldiers were sent to rescue the poor captive and take 
him back to prison, so that justice might be done in due order 
and with impartiality ; but they came too late, and the people, 
incensed at being disturbed in their amusement, used their 
firearms another invention of the devil which, enabling a 
man to slay his adversary without being near him, has stifled 
courage and prowess and manly intrepidity, the virtues of the 
race in thy time. Some of the soldiers fell down grievously 
hurt. But the multitude, being cowards, ran away." 

Issa said : " This is not the mankind whom I came to save. 
They know me not, although they hypocrites, vipers, and 
blasphemers ! call upon my name ; and I shall know them 
not on the last day, but shall pray God to cast them into outer 
darkness." 

And he departed thence. 

VI. 

Many other countries did Issa visit. In South Africa he 
found the English nation exterminating with hellish con- 
trivances a tribe of kindly husbandmen who had been living 
contentedly and peacefully on the soil which they had 
conquered from the heathen, so that the English might dig 
into the ground and carry away gold and precious stones 
therefrom. In Asia he found the Russian nation making 
dreadful war upon a strange people that had desired to 
ameliorate its lot and to extend its commerce. And many 
more devil's inventions did he see : instruments by which the 
human voice was carried from house to house and from town 
to town, so that a man, desiring to offend his neighbour, could 
speak to him at a distance, lest the neighbour should rise up in 
his wrath and smite him on the cheekbone ; another instru- 
ment, in which the lightning became man's slave and carried 
messages over incredible spaces in less time than it takes to 
utter that message with the lips ; ships that sailed without 
sails, being propelled by hell-fires burning in their bowels ; 
frightful implements of destruction swimming under the sea, 



THE SECOND COMING OF ISSA 45 

by means of which, vessels could be broken and sunk in a 
second ; ships that dived into the water and came up again at 
a distant part of the ocean ; boats that floated in the air and 
defied the winds ; long tubes which revealed the forbidden 
mysteries, hidden to man since the beginning of time, of the 
moon and the stars and all the heavens ; huge, ugly edifices, 
in which contrivances of glimmering, crashing steel, revolv- 
ing eternally and working of their own accord, made the 
necessities of life which in his time were fashioned by 
craftsmen and labourers, who thereby bought bread for their 
children. And many other awe-inspiring things did he see ; 
and he marvelled greatly at the stupidity of men, who called 
these "labour-saving appliances," and perceived not that 
thereby labour and sorrow and poverty had greatly increased, 
so that innocent enjoyment, the love of nature, the study of 
God's Law, serene contemplation, prayer, the assembling of 
congregations for worship and praise, devotion to home and 
family, the searching of old records, and all else that had made 
life pleasant in the olden time, had become all but impossible. 

And he found that the rich had grown wicked beyond 
even the devil's wildest hopes. They lent money on usury ; 
they adulterated the food of the people ; they caused women 
and young girls and tender children to work in dreadful 
prisons, and even in the bowels of the earth ; they had seized 
the land, and extorted vast sums from those who had to live 
thereon. Everywhere the poor were oppressed, and the rich 
sinned with impunity and amassed more wealth thereby. 

And wherever the nations called on his name he found 
men without honour, women without virtue, children without 
innocence, merchants without honesty, priests without faith, 
soldiers without courage, judges without justice, lawyers with- 
out law, teachers without wisdom, kings without clemency ; 
and he discovered not one country in which, despite temples 
and priests, his message was not utterly ignored, as if he 
had never lived and taught, suffered and died. 

Heartsick and despairing, Issa came at last to the land in 



46 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

which his earthly life had been passed Syria, the cradle of 
his race, the promised land, the country blessed of God. 

VII. 

And so Issa stood on the shores of the Lake of Tubariyeh, 
at the foot of that hill from the slope of which he had, 
nineteen centuries before, preached his message of faith and 
love and hope to a wondering multitude. He knew every 
inch of that ground, and little was changed. Here no 
thundering, stinking, demoniacal horseless carriages sped on 
their lightning-errand, to the destruction of peace, comfort, 
and beauty. Here no ugly prisons full of clanging machinery, 
emitting foul smoke from their tall, hideous chimneys, dis- 
figured the fair landscape. Here were no telegraphs, and they 
were not needed ; for men, wishing to send messages to absent 
friends, wrote kindly epistles, or dictated such to the grave, 
learned letter-writers. Here were no telephones, and they 
were not needed ; for a man, being at strife with his neighbour, 
had the courage to go to his house and say to him face to face 
that with which he had to reproach him. Here were no tele- 
scopes, and they were not needed ; for men and women were 
grateful for the life-giving Warmth of the sun, for the gentle 
light of the moon, for the glorious sparkling of the starry 
heavens, without foolishly inquiring into distance and com- 
position and movement, and receiving lying replies thereto 
from conceited men as insignificant and pitiable and ignorant 
as themselves. Here were no railways, and they were not 
needed ; for men had sturdy legs, patient asses, strong camels, 
docile horses. 

It was the early spring, and in the soft wind blowing from 
the tideless sea the fields were like waving oceans of millions 
upon millions of gorgeously hued anemones. Lilies fairer 
than Solomon in all his glory (on whom be peace !) blossomed 
in the cottage gardens ; the scent of roses came like the 
breath of some beautiful houri ; the slopes of the hills had 
patches of burning gold, where daffodils grew in their legions ; 



THE SECOND COMING OF ISSA 47 

and the lake sparkled in the sun as if God had poured over it 
all the diamonds and sapphires of Thousand and One Nights. 

On this spot Issa had taught that which, if it had been 
followed, would have had in its wake peace, love, and happiness 
for the whole human race. And something akin to the agony 
in the garden beyond the city gates of El Kuds came back 
to him when he reflected on what had actually occurred 
since he had proved his own sincerity, and the truth and 
beauty of his message, by his death. The present generation 
not only ignored every one of his precepts, but acted 
habitually in direct contradiction to it, and persecuted those 
who maintained that he had been right after all. Among all 
the nations who called themselves by his name, he had not 
found one tribe, one town, one hamlet in which he could 
have exclaimed : " Here I will abide, for here I am loved and 
honoured and obeyed." And so he was come back to that 
nation which did him no lip-service, but which lived in 
accordance with his principles of love and piety, and which 
obeyed the Law of the Greater One, whose path he had 
prepared. 

He descended towards the water's edge as a fisherman's 
boat was landing its plentiful cargo. He saluted the master 
thereof and his brothers, and, stating that he was a wayfarer, 
weary and footsore, humble and penniless, prayed that a mite 
out of the wealth from the depths of the sea might be given 
to him, to the glory of the Lord of Hosts. And the master, 
having filled a basket, seized Issa's hand and gently led him, 
whom he supposed to be a tired and halting wanderer, to his 
house. And he placed a basin of water and a clean napkin 
before him, so that he might wash his feet. And when he 
had thus refreshed himself, the master gave him to eat and 
to drink. And Issa rested in that house for a little while and 
blessed it. And he took the master's child upon his knee 
and told the little one a wondrous story of far lands and 
gracious spirits. And when he left the house the master 
thereof gave him a loaf and a cup of milk and wished him 



48 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

good luck. And when Issa was alone again, he fell on his 
knees by the roadside and lifted his face to God and gave 
thanks ; and he wept with joy that at last he had found again 
love and pity and hospitality, as he had found them on that 
very spot in the years long, long past. 

And Issa blessed that land and gave it peace and increase. 

Issa stood before the throne of the Lord of Hosts to render 
an account of his earthly pilgrimage. And he said ; 

" My Lord and my Father, I have wandered over the 
world, and found everywhere wickedness and oppression, and 
greed and sin. But in one country, and in one only, have 
men received me and broken bread with me and given me a 
cup in Thy name. And to that country would I return when 
the time cometh, when Thou shalt send me with glory to 
judge the living and the dead." 

And the Prophet, who stood at the right hand of the 
Throne, said : 

" The people of which the saint speaketh is that people into 
which 1 was born, with which I lived, which I taught, for 
which I fought, among which I died. To this people give 
Thou, O Lord, Thy blessing." 

And the Lord of Hosts made answer and said : 

" So be it. 

F. W. VON HERBERT. 

SHANKLIN. 



A GREAT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT. 
REV. CHARLES PLATER, S.J. 

THE average Englishman has a certain pathetic faith in the 
efficacy of committees as instruments of social regeneration. 
When once he has grasped the purpose for which his com- 
mittee exists, he is apt to resent any further inquiries as to 
how far this purpose is related to actual social needs. Give 
him a report which records a lavish distribution of blankets, 
or an unparalleled activity in the giving of lantern-lectures, 
or the capture of a football trophy by repentant hooligans, 
and he asks no more. Possibly the results thus secured may 
indicate some constructive work, and mark an advance 
towards the realisation of a carefully considered scheme. 
Possibly they may not. Where the vision is limited to a 
narrow field of practical work, it is easy to mistake the means 
for the end, and to develop a cheery optimism based on 
fallacious statistics. 

Such philanthropic short-sightedness is not without its 
advantages. The sight of realities which lie deeper, of social 
conditions which threaten to nullify their work as inexorably 
as the incoming tide washes away the children's sand-castles, 
would probably discourage many workers from efforts which, 
however inadequate, are not without their value. Yet, on 
the other hand, some reflection upon the more fundamental 
needs of our time would give our departmental workers an 
increased solidarity and a more assured direction. Their 
efforts would lose none of their value for being seen in 

VOL. VII. No. 1. 49 4 



50 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

perspective. In fact, one of the most serious weaknesses of 
much of our social work lies in its exclusive attention to the 
improvement of material surroundings. It is tacitly assumed 
that a corresponding improvement in character will be the 
necessary result a result which may be left to take care of 
itself. 

In this matter we may quote the opinion of Mr C. F. G. 
Masterman, who, while admitting the value of the efforts 
which are being made to meet specific social evils, has pleaded 
eloquently for a recognition of what is, after all, the deepest 
social need of our time : 

"A background to life some common bond uniting, despite the dis- 
cordance of the competitive struggle some worthy object of enthusiasm or 
devotion behind the aimless passage of the years some spiritual force or ideal 
elevated over the shabby scene of temporary failure this is the deep, im- 
perative need of the masses in our great cities to-day. With this the mere 
discomforts incidental to changing conditions of life and the specific remediable 
social evils can be contemplated with equanimity ; without it the drifting 
through time of the interminable multitude of the unimportant becomes a 
mere nightmare vision of a striving signifying nothing, ' doing and undoing 
without end.' No material comfort, increased intellectual alertness, or wider 
capacity of attainment, will occupy the place of this one fundamental need. 
The only test of progress which is to be anything but a mere animal rejoicing 
over mere animal pleasure is the development and spread of some spiritual 
ideal which will raise into an atmosphere of effort and distinction the life of 
the ordinary man." The Heart of the Empire, p. 30. 

The inadequacy of so much of our social work lies in this, 
that not only does it touch merely the fringe of the classes in 
which it is interested, but it makes no deep impression upon 
the individual most accessible to its treatment. It tends to 
raise the standard of comfort rather than of character. It does 
not fortify men: it merely alters their surroundings. The 
change is applied from without, not educed from within. It 
reminds us of the gardeners in Alice in Wonderland who 
painted the white roses red. This was, no doubt, only a 
temporary expedient, resorted to under stress of panic. It 
could hardly have been based upon any deliberate horticultural 
theory. Even in Wonderland red roses must be grown and 
not painted. 



A GREAT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 51 

This want of an ideal indicated by Mr Masterman is 
perhaps more sadly apparent among the workmen of this 
country than among those of the Continent. Our fiercer 
individualism makes little response, for instance, to the 
enthusiasms of a socialism which, however crude, does at least 
substitute class selfishness for individual self-seeking. It is 
clear that an ideal which is to win popular acceptance amongst 
us and lift us out of the rut of materialism must be something 
very potent, very rousing, and very simple. No aesthetic 
propagandism, no prospect of remote benefits to posterity will 
suffice. Our appeal must be to the whole man. It must be 
practical without being sordid, reasonable yet not academic, 
and emotional without hysterics. Our ideal must be high 
enough to co-ordinate all the activities of life and to satisfy the 
spiritual nature, yet so practical that it can maintain itself in 
an environment to which every other ideal would succumb 
and not only maintain itself, but serve as a stimulus and a 
guide to constructive social work. We have in fact to dis- 
cover an ideal which will illuminate the mind and strengthen 
the will of the ordinary man in the ordinary street, and we 
have to do this at a time when the national character is 
showing deplorable signs of deterioration. We are, it has 
been said, a nation at play. Work is a nuisance, and the real 
business of life is amusement. The warning has been raised 
of late in many quarters, and the point need not be emphasised 
further. But an appreciation of the danger should lead us to 
seek primarily for some method of developing virility and 
strength of character, steadiness of purpose and consciousness 
of individual responsibility. Until we have secured this, our 
material will crumble to pieces at our touch. To raise the 
standard of comfort is only to precipitate the collapse. Legis- 
lation can do little in the absence of moral stamina among a 
people. Thus the drink evil, to take but one instance, cannot 
be remedied merely by restrictive measures, though these 
undoubtedly have their value. We must give men an effective 
motive for not evading the law. This is obviously no easy task. 



52 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

And having found our ideal we must devise some method 
of making it dominate the lives of prosaic people. When it is 
a question of penetrating the working classes, the ordinary 
channels of social and religious activity will not suffice. 
Modern industrial conditions have isolated the workers, so that 
they now live and think apart from the rest of the community. 
Their relation to their employers rests on a cash basis, not, as 
formerly, on the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of 
God. They have their own standards and their own ways of 
looking at things. The bulk of them will not avail themselves 
of the best-intentioned efforts to reach them. They regard 
the Churches as institutions intended for the Sunday re- 
creation of a certain section of the well-dressed. Religion 
does not claim their attention, or present itself as " good 
tidings." They will not accept the spiritual ministrations of 
those who, they feel, are out of sympathy with them. Of 
course there are exceptions. They will listen to men like 
Father Dolling, and they may respond, to some extent, to the 
work of a Settlement. But is there any likelihood that the 
Settlement movement will develop on a scale sufficient to 
affect more than an infinitesimal proportion of the working 
classes ? And even here the want of a definite ideal some- 
times leads to that worship of visible results of which we have 
spoken. As for institutions embodying purely secular ideals- 
ethical societies, courses of lectures on art, and the like it 
will be clear to those who know the deepest needs of our 
working classes that these can never serve as an ultimate goal 
of human endeavour, or produce, by themselves, any degree of 
virility. 

Hence direct action upon working men as a body is diffi- 
cult. The only possible method is to reach them through 
members of their own class. If we can form a nucleus of 
working men who feel that they have a message for their 
brethren, and will spare no pains and shirk no obloquy in 
delivering it, our problem will be solved. If only a small 
body of influential working men could be selected, brought 



A GREAT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 53 

away from their normal surroundings, and invited to meet 
together for a few days in a comfortable country house, then, 
provided they could be won to enthusiasm for a great ideal, 
they would form an elite which would diffuse that ideal among 
others. Repeat the performance every week near several of 
the great centres of industry, and the whole tone of the 
working classes in the country will be raised. 

The suggestion may sound quixotic. But it has actually 
been tried on a very large scale within the last few years, and 
has succeeded beyond the expectations of its most sanguine 
promoters. To give some account of this work is the purpose 
of the present article. The method employed is that of the 
Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, and the process of going 
through these exercises is popularly known as " making a 
retreat." 

Such retreats are, of course, no new institution, but it is 
only within recent years that they have been brought to bear 
in a systematic way upon the working classes. As so directed 
they have been worked with phenomenal success in many 
countries, and are indeed of universal application a point 
which must invest them with an additional interest for 
ourselves. But it is in Belgium that they have reached their 
most complete development, and to their results in that 
country we may restrict our attention. Although the work 
in question is primarily a religious one, its social effects have 
been so satisfactory that it is now supported by many publicists 
and social workers who have but little sympathy with the 
religious system upon which the work is based. It will be 
seen in what practical ways these supporters have given 
expression to their belief in its efficacy. 

The story of the recent development of the retreats in 
Belgium may be briefly told. In 1890 forty-two workmen 
were invited to spend a few days at a Catholic College in 
Charleroi for the purpose of " making a retreat " an operation 
the nature of which may perhaps become clearer as we proceed. 
They came every morning, and dispersed at night to their own 



54 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

homes. It was soon seen that this arrangement was unsatis- 
factory. If a retreat is to succeed, the men must be with- 
drawn entirely from their normal surroundings. A retreat is 
an orderly process, an " exercise," which must be made without 
interruption. It is this that marks it oft 1 from " missions " and 
similar intermittent appeals to the conscience. 

A house, then, had to be procured in which workmen 
might spend at least three full days in uninterrupted retreat. 
This was effected in 1891 at Fayt-lez-Manage, and the first 
"enclosed" retreat (retraite fermec) was given to twenty-six 
workmen. Before long all Belgium became aware that a new 
social force of extraordinary significance was at work in the 
country. 

Three years later a second house was built at Ghent. 
Since then four more houses have sprung up, at Arlon, Lierre, 
Liege, and Alken. Their popularity is sufficiently attested by 
the following figures. At the first house (Fayt), during the 
sixteen years of its existence, retreats have been given to more 
than 22,000 men. Ghent in fourteen years has received over 
18,000 men ; Lierre in eight years, about the same number. 
About 10,000 men made retreats in the various houses during 
the year 1907. New houses are called for, and the possibilities 
of the work are almost endless. It should be said that the 
number of men who make a retreat together in a single house 
is about forty. 

The six houses now in existence are all managed on the 
same general lines, and a description of one of them will 
suffice to give some idea of the rest. We may select for our 
purpose the establishment at Lierre, founded in 1899. The 
house, which, though in the town, stands in extensive grounds, 
is a cheerful building of red brick and stone, built, as the 
Father Superior or Warden maintains, in the very purest 
Flemish style. Next to the house is a chapel, for the 
exclusive use of those who make the retreats. The garden 
is well planted with trees, and the men may walk about in it 
at their pleasure. A garden, it may be remarked, is indispens- 



A GREAT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 55 

able for a retreat. The men are not accustomed to dwell 
with their own thoughts, and to box them up in a small room 
for three days would conduce to a state of nervous tension 
quite fatal to success. In the present case, besides the garden, 
we find a large winter-garden or glass-enclosed court, where 
the men can take exercise in wet weather. The ground floor 
of the house is occupied by the kitchen, the dining-hall, the 
common room, billiard-room, and library. The upper stories 
contain some fifty bedrooms, plainly furnished. Every part 
of the house is beautifully light, and there seems to be white 
paint everywhere. 

Each week a batch of men comes to the house for a three 
days' retreat. Most of these are workmen, but not unfrequently 
a special retreat will be given to a group of students or 
employers or soldiers or professional men or priests. The 
various social classes are generally kept distinct in order that 
the instructions may have special reference to the needs of 
one particular class. But sometimes exceptions are asked for, 
and the present writer has seen distinguished senators, financiers, 
and lawyers going through a retreat side by side with a band 
of workmen. At Lierre we chiefly see agricultural labourers, 
masons, navvies, carpenters, railway employees, and the like. 
They come in from the neighbouring districts, from the 
surrounding villages, and even from the more distant towns 
like Antwerp and Louvain. 

How, it may be asked, is it possible to get ordinary 
workmen to immerse themselves in solitude for three days in 
order to give themselves to serious reflection upon the gravest 
problems ? The answer is that, once the retreats have been 
started, the men themselves do the recruiting, and a steady 
stream of visitors is kept up. The workman is reached by 
the workman. In the beginning, of course, only picked men 
are invited men of a serious turn of mind, who have already 
something like an ideal. The purpose of a retreat is carefully 
explained to them, and they are urged to try the experiment. 
When they have done so they may be depended upon to 



56 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

persuade a number of their fellow-workmen to follow their 
example. The good effects are seen at once in the strengthen- 
ing and tranquillising of character. The retreat gives the 
men something to live for. It supplies what, as we have 
said, is the fundamental social need a background to life. 
Some are led to make it by curiosity ; others, strange as it 
may seem, by bravado. None are refused if they will but 
undertake to keep the rules of the house, and avoid disturbing 
the others. In almost every case the result is the same. 
Bitterness of spirit and hardness of heart give way, almost 
under our eyes, to a genial kindliness and a hopefulness which 
is based on a new appreciation of the meaning of life. The 
men lose none of their desire to combat social evils. On the 
contrary, their zeal is increased. But they come to see that 
all successful effort in this direction must be based upon a 
reformation of character ; and their chief desire, on leaving, 
is to win their fellows to a recognition of the value of these 
retreats as a foundation for social reform. One man out of 
the hundreds working in a big industrial establishment will 
present himself at one of the houses. After a few weeks 
three or four more are sure to arrive. These form a com- 
mittee which, the following year, will perhaps send a dozen. 
And so the work grows. When employers become aware of 
the increased conscientiousness and reliability which these 
retreats foster, they almost invariably (whatever their own 
religious convictions may be) do all in their power to foster 
the work by facilitating the men's absence from work, paying 
their wages during the interval, supplying their travelling 
fare, and even making donations to the houses. And many 
employers make retreats, sometimes by themselves, and some- 
times with the workmen. A better understanding between 
the two classes is thus effected, and something of the old guild 
spirit is the result. 

Returning to the house at Lierre, we may imagine our- 
selves present at the arrival of a batch of workmen, some of 
whom, probably, have never made a retreat before. The 



A GREAT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 57 

house wears a somewhat depressed air during the first evening. 
Many of the men look intensely bored ; some are shy and 
awkward, others assume an air of suspicious defiance, as if to 
intimate that they at least are not going to be imposed upon. 
Attempts to engage in conversation with them are not particu- 
larly encouraging. They stray about the galleries, staring at 
the religious pictures and statues, or exchanging whispered 
comments. The supper-bell comes as a relief, and the crowd 
drifts off to the dining-hall. After supper the men amuse 
themselves as they will with cards and billiards, pipes and 
beer. Then follows Benediction and a short explanation 
of the retreat, its objects, the rules of the house, and 
so forth. 

The following is the " order of the day " for the next three 
days: The men rise at 6 and, after morning prayers in 
common, hear Mass. During breakfast a spiritual book is 
read for a few minutes. After breakfast the men smoke, 
walk about the grounds, or play at such games as bowls, 
billiards, and draughts. At 8.15 they go to the chapel, where 
the priest who is conducting the retreat sets before them for 
the space of about half an hour some elementary thoughts or 
" points." They then go to their rooms in silence and think 
over what they have just heard. Then they read a religious 
book (the Gospels, the Imitation of Christ, the life of some 
saint, and so forth) in the grounds or reading-room, or in their 
own rooms. Later on they say the rosary together, walking 
in the grounds or in the covered court. At 10.30 there are 
" points " in the chapel as before, followed again by " medita- 
tion " in private. After the midday dinner the men amuse 
themselves as after breakfast. At 2 p.m. come " Stations of 
the Cross," spiritual reading, rosary in the grounds, and a 
hymn in the chapel ; then the afternoon " points and medita- 
tion." At 4.30, coffee and conversation. Strict silence is 
maintained excepting during these fixed periods after meals. 
Then more spiritual reading, rosary in the garden, hymn in 
the chapel, evening "points and meditation." Supper at 7 is 



58 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

followed by recreation as before. Finally Benediction at 9.30 
and night prayers. Confessions are heard on the second day, 
and Holy Communion is administered on the third. On the 
morning of the fourth the men take their departure. 

This programme does not sound exciting. To those who 
have never had practical experience of a retreat, it might 
appear wearisome in the extreme. Such, indeed, is the view 
generally taken of it on their arrival in the house by the work- 
men who make it for the first time. Yet the fact remains 
that the very men who, it may be, showed every signs of 
boredom at the beginning, and during the first and even the 
second day, are obviously sorry to leave the house on the 
morning of the fourth, and declare their intention of coming 
the following year. Indeed, it is sometimes no easy matter to 
get rid of them. They frequently leave behind them in their 
rooms letters expressing their gratitude ; these notes are often 
extremely touching in their simple sincerity. 

It may be said at once that the whole force of the retreat 
lies in the " points " and " meditations " made four times a day. 
The hymns, rosary, and the like are intended to relax the 
tension without dissipating the mind. The men must be kept 
moving or singing or praying or reading ; otherwise their 
minds will revert to their normal surroundings and familiar 
associations, or else, it may be, become a prey to melancholy 
and morbid introspection. But such is the bent given to them 
by the four periods of meditation, that the pious exercises are 
not felt as a constraint. 

The matter proposed for consideration in these " points " is 
not chosen at haphazard, but follows the orderly course of the 
Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius a book, by the way, which 
yields little of its secret to the casual reader, but has to be 
" worked through " in the literal sense of the term, and this 
under the guidance of those who are qualified to present it. 
Hence it is not a question, in these retreats, of preaching 
detached sermons at the men four times a day. This would 
indeed be more than flesh and blood could stand. It is a ques- 



A GREAT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 59 

tion rather of leading the men on, step by step, to serious 
reflection upon the deepest truths of life. They do the real 
work, and the expression " preaching a retreat " gives a totally 
wrong impression of the office of the director. 

The appeal is to the whole man. Vague sentimentalism 
a mere emotional <k revival " with its inevitable reaction forms 
no part of the process. Neither, on the other hand, are the 
" points " abstract or academic. In orderly course the men are 
led onward, not by hysterical rhetoric but by calm and earnest 
statement of fact, to see the meaning of their lives. Man, they 
are led to reflect, has been created by God to render praise, 
reverence, and service to his Maker. All other things exist in 
order to help him to fulfil that purpose aright. Here at once 
is a standard by which he may judge everything he employs- 
money, opportunities, friends, health, life itself. Here is a 
basis for (among other things) his social duties. All his 
aspirations after material well-being fall into their place ; all 
that is good in them is developed and justified, all that is crude 
or exaggerated is refined away. The malice of sin and the 
necessity for its punishment are explained. Each one makes 
a careful survey of his past life in the light of the great 
principle just obtained. And, lest the soul should lose courage, 
it is told of the fatherly mercy of God, as displayed, perhaps, 
in the parable of the prodigal son, or the story of the woman 
who was a sinner. Then the meaning of the Redemption is 
explained. Appeal is made to the generosity of each. He is 
Christ's soldier, and a great battle is raging, though he guessed 
it not, between the powers of light and those of darkness. 
The scene of it is his own factory, his own club, his own home. 
On which side will he range himself? Before God he makes 
his choice. The life of Christ is passed in review and made 
the pattern on which each is to mould his own life in future. 
The story of the Passion leaves its mark. Then, strengthened 
and tranquillised, the men come to see how the love of God is 
the force which raises man above himself, ennobles his life, and 
gives him eternal happiness. To all this an assent is given 



60 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

which is real, and not, as Cardinal Newman puts it, " notional." 
It forms the starting-point of a new life. 

That the men do undergo a deep spiritual experience will 
be evident to anyone who has stayed in one of these houses 
of retreat, seen them at their prayers, listened to their con- 
versation, and watched their after lives. A kind of astonished 
gratitude is seen in their faces. They go forth with a work 
to do, and they set about doing it in a practical and resolute 
fashion. When once back at their daily work they stand out 
boldly against the degrading influences which surround them, 
and endeavour, often with very great success, to form a 
healthy public opinion. The subsequent organisation of those 
who have made a retreat is, of course, a matter of great 
importance. Where possible they spend a day of quiet 
recollection and helpful converse every month or so in one 
of the retreat houses, thereby reinforcing the impressions first 
made there. On the religious side the effects are seen in 
every direction. Churches, once almost deserted, are filled 
with workmen to whom religion has become the central 
reality of their lives. They will march to Mass and the 
Sacraments in processions which number hundreds of men, 
with bands and banners, and this in centres where a few years 
ago materialism was threatening to eat out every trace of 
the supernatural. 

But it is rather with the social effects of these retreats 
that the present paper is concerned, and here the results 
gained have won the admiration of all who are interested in 
social welfare. The employer and the workman have been 
brought together and have gained a new conception of their 
respective duties. The former has come to look upon the 
latter not as a tool but as a fellow-man, whose moral and 
material well-being must not be prejudiced by any contract 
made between them. The latter has found something which 
gives to every detail of his life a meaning and a value. " The 
dignity of labour" is henceforth no empty phrase. Work 
is not something to be reduced to a minimum, and abandoned 



A GREAT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 61 

as soon as possible. The dignity of work is seen to arise not 
from its compulsion, but from the spirit in which it is done. 
Improved workmanship and increased conscientiousness at 
once result. All that hinders ennobling work is resolutely 
resisted. The drink evil is combated with a success almost 
incredible to those who pin their faith to " cures " or legisla- 
tion. Organisations to improve the social condition of the 
destitute or the working classes arise on every side. Co- 
operative institutions and mutual societies are multiplied, 
sound social legislation is promoted, the weak are helped, 
and the helpless are supported without being pauperised. 
Family life is held in honour, and the household becomes the 
school of civic virtues. The men work for their children, and 
no longer regard offspring as obstacles to enjoyment. The 
gospel of selfishness and self-indulgence becomes discredited. 
The idea of fraternity supplies at last not a mere parrot-cry 
of class selfishness, but an illuminating guide in practical life, 
and a force which makes for social solidarity. 

It may be added that retreats of the same sort have been 
provided for working women in Belgium, and this on an even 
more astonishing scale. Fourteen houses exist in which 
retreats are given to between thirty and fifty women almost 
every week. The results are seen in a widespread improve- 
ment of family life, due to increased thrift, sobriety, devotion 
to duty, and a strengthening of family ties. 

After all, these retreats appeal to human nature, and not 
to mere national peculiarities or accidental qualities in those 
to whom they are addressed. Hence they are of universal 
application, as, indeed, the facts have shown. They do not 
depend for their efficacy on the more or less emotional 
temperament of particular nations, nor even on the prevailing 
religious tone of a district. They have of late been introduced 
with excellent results into the most industrial and least re- 
ligious centres of Germany. They have, as it would be 
interesting to show, been addressed with success to the non- 
European mind. 



62 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Regular houses of retreats for girls and women of all classes 
of society are now established in London, Manchester, and 
Liverpool. Occasional retreats are given to working men in 
London and the north. And finally, a special house of retreats 
for men (Compstall Hall) was opened last March near Marple. 
It is an attractive country mansion, standing in ten acres of 
ground. To this house different batches of about twenty men, 
mainly working men, come every week to spend three full 
days in retreat. It is hoped to enlarge the house so as to 
accommodate fifty visitors at a time. There is no difficulty in 
getting the men : the work is its own best advertisement. 
Those who have already made retreats at Compstall Hall 
announce their intention of returning next year and bringing 
their friends. There can be no doubt about the deep impression 
which these retreats are making. 

To sum up. In the regeneration of family life, and the 
providing of the working classes with a background to life, 
lies the chief hope of the nation's welfare. To this end, as 
experience has shown, the institution of spiritual retreats is a 
singularly valuable means. For the effects of these retreats 
are as wide as life itself; and one of these effects, which, 
though secondary, is not unimportant, has been an improve- 
ment in the material conditions of the working classes. 

CHARLES PLATER. 

ST BKUNO'S COLLEGE. 



HEGEL AND HIS METHOD. 
PROFESSOR WILLIAM JAMES. 

DIRECTLY or indirectly, that strange and powerful genius 
Hegel has done more to strengthen idealistic pantheism in 
thoughtful circles than all other influences put together. In 
no philosophy is the fact that a philosopher's vision and the 
technique he uses in proof of it are two different things more 
palpably evident than in him. The vision in his case was that 
of a world in which reason holds all things in solution and 
accounts for all the irrationality that superficially appears by 
taking it up as a " moment " into itself. This vision was so 
intense in Hegel and the tone of authority with which he spoke 
from out of the midst of it was so weighty that the impression 
he made has never been effaced. Once dilated to the scale of 
the master's eye, the disciples' sight could not contract to any 
lesser prospect. The technique which Hegel used to prove his 
vision was the so-called dialectic method, but here his fortune 
has been quite contrary. Hardly a recent disciple has felt his 
particular applications of the method to be entirely satisfactory. 
Many of them have let them drop entirely, treating them 
rather as a sort of provisional stopgap, symbolic of what might 
some day prove possible of execution, but having no literal 
cogency or value now. Yet these very same disciples hold to 
the vision as a revelation that can never pass away. The case 
is curious and worthy of our study. 

It is still more curious in that these same disciples, although 
willing to abandon any particular instance of the dialectic 



63 



64 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

method to its critics, are unshakably sure that in some shape 
the said dialectic method is the key to truth. What is this 
dialectic method ? It is itself a part of the Hegelian vision 
or intuition, and a part that finds the strongest echo in 
empiricism and common sense. Great injustice is done to 
Hegel by treating him as primarily a reasoner. He is in 
reality a naively observant man, only beset with a perverse 
preference for the use of technical and logical jargon. He 
plants himself in the empirical flux of things and gets the 
impression of what happens. His mind is in very truth impres- 
sionistic ; and his thought, when once you put yourself at the 
animating centre of it, is the easiest thing in the world to catch 
the pulse of and to follow. 

Any author is easy if you can catch the centre of his vision. 
From the centre in Hegel come those towering sentences of 
his that are comparable only to Luther's, as where, speaking of 
the ontological proof of God's existence from the concept of 
Him as the ens perfectissimum to which no attribute can be 
lacking, he says : "It would be strange if the Notion, the very 
heart of the mind, or in a word the concrete totality we call 
God, were not rich enough to embrace so poor a category as 
Being, the very poorest and most abstract of all for nothing 
can be more insignificant than Being." But if Hegel's central 
thought is easy to catch, his habits of speech make his applica- 
tion of it to details exceedingly difficult to follow. His 
passion for the slipshod in the way of sentences; his unprincipled 
playing fast and loose with terms ; his abominable vocabulary, 
calling what completes a thing its " negation," for example ; 
his systematic refusal to let you know whether he is talking 
logic or physics or psychology, his deliberately adopted 
ambiguity and vagueness, in short : all these things make his 
present-day readers wish to tear their hair or his out in 
desperation. Like Byron's corsair, he leaves "a name to 
other times, linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes." 

The virtue was the vision, which was really in two parts. 
The first part was that reason is all-inclusive ; the second was 



HEGEL AND HIS METHOD 65 

that things are "dialectic." Let me say a word about this 
second part of Hegel's vision. 

The impression that any naif person gets who plants 
himself innocently in the flux of things is that things are off 
their balance. Whatever equilibriums our finite experiences 
attain to are but provisional. Martinique volcanoes shatter 
our Wordsworthian equilibrium with Nature. Pathological 
accidents, mental or physical, break up the slowly built-up 
equilibriums men reach in family life and in their civic and 
professional relations. Intellectual enigmas frustrate our 
scientific systems, and the ultimate cruelty of the universe 
upsets our religious attitudes and outlooks. Of no special 
system of good attained does the universe recognise the value 
as sacred. Down it tumbles, over it goes, to feed the ravenous 
appetite for destruction of the larger system of history in 
which it stood for a moment as a landing-place and stepping- 
stone. This dogging of everything by its negative, its fate, 
its undoing, this perpetual moving on to something future 
which shall supersede the present, this is the Hegelian intuition 
of the essential provisionality, and consequent unreality, of 
everything empirical and finite. Take any concrete finite 
thing and try to hold it fast. You cannot, for so held, it 
proves not to be concrete at all, but an arbitrary extract or 
abstract which you have made from the remainder of empirical 
reality. The rest of things invade and overflow both it and 
you together, and defeat your rash attempt. Any partial 
view of the world tears the part out of its relations, leaves out 
some truth concerning it, is untrue of it, falsifies it. The full 
truth about anything involves more than that thing. Nothing 
less than the whole of everything can be the truth of anything 
at all. Taken so far, Hegel is not only harmless, but accurate. 
There is a dialectic movement in things, if such it please you 
to call it, one that the whole institution of concrete life estab- 
lishes ; but it is one that can be described and accounted for in 
terms of the pluralistic vision of things far more naturally than 

in the terms to which Hegel reduced it. Empiricism knows 
Voi, VIL No. 1. 5 



66 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that everything is in a surrounding world of other things, and 
that if you leave it to work there it will inevitably meet with 
friction and opposition. Its rivals and enemies will destroy 
it unless it can buy them off by compromising some part of 
its original pretensions. 

But Hegel saw this undeniable characteristic of the world 
we live in in a non-empirical light. Let the idea of the thing 
work in your thought all alone, he fancied, and the same con- 
sequences will follow. It will be negated by the opposite 
ideas that dog it, and can only survive by entering, along with 
them, into some kind of treaty. This treaty will be an instance 
of the so-called "higher synthesis" of everything with its 
negative ; and Hegel's originality lay in transporting the pro- 
cess from the sphere of percepts to that of concepts and treating 
it as the universal method by which every kind of life, logical, 
physical, or psychological, is mediated. Not to the sensible 
facts as such, then, did Hegel turn for the secret of what 
keeps existence going, but rather to the conceptual way of 
treating them. Concepts were not in his eyes the static self- 
contained things that previous logicians had supposed, but 
were germinative and passed beyond themselves into each 
other by what he called their immanent dialectic. In ignoring 
each other as they do, they virtually exclude and deny each 
other, he thought, and thus in a manner introduce each other. 
So the dialectic logic according to him had to supersede the 
" logic of identity " in which since Aristotle all Europe had 
been brought up. 

This view of concepts is Hegel's revolutionary performance ; 
but so studiously vague and ambiguous are all his expressions 
of it that one can hardly tell whether it is the concepts as such 
or the sensible experiences and elements conceived that Hegel 
really means to work with. The only thing that is certain is 
that whatever you may say of his procedure some one will 
accuse you of misunderstanding it. I make no claim to under- 
standing it ; I treat it merely impressionistically. 

So treating it, I regret that he should have called it by 



HEGEL AND HIS METHOD 67 

the name of logic. Clinging as he did to the vision of a really 
living world, and refusing to be content with a chopped-up 
intellectualist picture of it, it is a pity that he should have 
adopted the very word that intellectualism had already pre- 
empted. But he clung fast to the old rationalist contempt 
for the immediately given world of sense and all its squalid 
particulars, and never tolerated the notion that the form of 
philosophy might be hypothetical only. His own system had 
to be a product of eternal reason, so the word logic, with 
its suggestions of coercive necessity, was the only word he 
could find natural. He pretended therefore to be using the 
a priori method, and to be working by a scanty equipment of 
ancient logical terms position, negation, reflection, universal, 
particular, individual, and the like. But what he really worked 
by was his own empirical perceptions, which exceeded and 
overflowed his miserably insufficient logical categories in 
every instance of their use. 

What he did with the category of negation was his most 
original stroke. The orthodox view was that you can advance 
logically through the field of concepts only by going from the 
same to the same. Hegel felt deeply the sterility of this law 
of conceptual thought ; he saw that in a fashion negation also 
relates things ; and he had the brilliant idea of transcending 
the ordinary logic by treating advance from the different to the 
different as if it were also a necessity of thought. " The so-called 
maxim of identity," he wrote, " is supposed to be accepted by 
the consciousness of everyone. But the language which such a 
law demands, * a planet is a planet, magnetism is magnetism, 
mind is mind,' deserves to be called silliness. No mind either 
speaks or thinks or forms conceptions in accordance with this 
law, and no existence of any kind whatever conforms to it. 
We must never view identity as abstract identity, to the 
exclusion of all difference. That is the touchstone for dis- 
tinguishing all bad philosophy from what alone deserves the 
name of philosophy. If thinking were no more than registering 
abstract identities, it would be a most superfluous performance. 



68 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Things and concepts are identical with themselves only in so 
far as at the same time they involve distinction." 1 

The distinction that Hegel has in mind here is naturally 
in the first instance distinction from all other things or 
concepts. But in his hands this quickly develops into contra- 
diction of them, and finally, reflected back upon itself, into 
self-contradiction ; and the immanent self-contradictoriness of 
all finite concepts thenceforth becomes the propulsive logical 
force that moves the world. 2 " Isolate a thing from all its 
relations," says Dr Edward Caird, 3 expounding Hegel, "and 
try to assert it by itself; you find that it has negated itself as 
well as its relations. The thing in itself is nothing." Or, to 
quote Hegel's own words : " When we suppose an existent A, 
and another B, B is at first defined as the other. But A is 
just as much the other of B. Both are others in the same 
fashion. . . . 4 Other ' is the other by itself, therefore the 
other of every other, consequently the other of itself, the 
simply unlike itself, the self-negator, the self-alterer," etc. 4 
Hegel writes elsewhere : " The finite, as implicitly other than 
what it is, is forced to surrender its own immediate or natural 
being, and to turn suddenly into its opposite. . . . Dialectic 
is the universal and irresistible power before which nothing 
can stay. . . . Summum jus, summa injuria to drive an 
abstract right to excess is to commit injustice. . . . Extreme 
anarchy and extreme despotism lead to one another. Pride 
comes before a fall. Too much wit outwits itself. Joy brings 
tears, melancholy a sardonic smile." 6 To which may well be 
added that most human institutions, by the purely technical 
and professional manner in which they come to be administered, 
end by becoming obstacles to the very purposes which their 
founders had in view. 

1 Hegel, Smaller Logic, tr. Wallace, pp. 184, 185. 

2 Cf. Hegel's fine vindication of this function of contradiction in his 
Wissenschaft der Logik, Bk. ii. sec. 1, chap. ii. C, Anmerkung 3. 

3 Hegel (in Blackwood's Philosophical Classics), p. 162. 

4 Wissenschaft der Logik, Bk. i. sec. 1, chap. ii. B, a. 

5 Wallace's translation of the Smaller Logic, p. 128. 



HEGEL AND HIS METHOD 69 

Once catch well the knack of this scheme of thought and 
you are lucky if you ever get away from it. It is all you can 
see. Let anyone pronounce anything, and your feeling of a 
contradiction being implied becomes a habit, almost a motor 
habit in some persons who symbolise by a stereotyped gesture 
the position, sublation, and final reinstatement involved. If 
you say " two " or " many," your speech bewrayeth you, for 
the very name collects them into one. If you express doubt, 
your expression contradicts its content, for the doubt itself is 
not doubted but affirmed. If you say " disorder," what is that 
but a certain bad kind of order ? If you say " indetermination," 
you are determining just that. If you say " Nothing but the 
unexpected happens," the unexpected becomes what you 
expect. If you say " All things are relative," to what is the all 
of them itself relative ? If you say " no more," there is already 
more, namely, the region in which more is sought, but no more 
is found to know a limit as such is consequently already to 
have got beyond it and so forth, throughout as many examples 
as one cares to cite. 

Whatever you posit appears thus as one-sided and negates 
its other, which, being equally one-sided, negates it ; and, 
since this situation is instable, the two contradictory terms 
have together to engender a higher truth of which they both 
appear as indispensable members, mutually mediating aspects 
of that higher concept or situation in thought. 

Every higher total, however provisional and relative, thus 
reconciles the contradictions which the parts abstracted from 
it prove implicitly to contain. Rationalism is the way of 
thinking that methodically subordinates parts to wholes, so 
Hegel here is rationalistic through and through. The only 
whole by which all contradictions are reconciled is for him the 
absolute whole of wholes, the all-inclusive reason to which 
Hegel himself gave the name of the absolute Idea. 

Empirical instances of the way in which higher unities 
reconcile contradictions are innumerable, so here again Hegel's 
vision, taken merely impressionistically, agrees with countless 



70 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

facts. Somehow life does, out of its total resources, find ways 
of satisfying opposites at once. This is precisely the para- 
doxical aspect which much of our civilisation presents. Peace 
we secure by armaments, liberty by laws and constitutions, 
simplicity and naturalness are the consummate result of arti- 
ficial breeding and training, health, strength, and wealth are 
increased only by lavish use, expense, and wear. Our mistrust 
of mistrust engenders our commercial system of credit ; our 
tolerance of revolutionary utterances is the only way of lessen- 
ing their danger ; our charity has to say no to beggars in order 
not to defeat its own desires ; the true epicurean has to 
observe great sobriety ; the way to certainty lies through 
radical doubt ; virtue signifies not innocence but the know- 
ledge of sin and its overcoming. 

The ethical and religious life are full of contradictions held 
in solution. You hate your enemy ? well, forgive him, and 
thereby heap coals of fire on his head ; to realise yourself, 
renounce yourself ; to save your soul, first lose it ; in short, die 
to live. 

From such massive examples one easily generalises Hegel's 
vision. Roughly, his " dialectic " picture is a fair account of a 
good deal of the world. It sounds paradoxical, but whenever 
you once place yourself at the point of view of any higher 
synthesis you see exactly how the thing comes about. Take, 
for example, the conflict between our carnivorous appetites and 
hunting instincts and the sympathy with animals which our 
refinement is bringing in its train. We have found how to 
reconcile the opposites most effectively by establishing game 
laws and close seasons and by keeping domestic herds. The 
creatures preserved thus are preserved for the sake of slaughter, 
truly, but if not preserved for that reason, not one of them 
would be alive at all. Their will to live and our will to kill 
them thus harmoniously combine. 

Merely as a reporter of certain aspects of the actual, Hegel 
then is great and true. But he aimed at being something far 
greater than an empirical reporter, so I must say something 



HEGEL AND HIS METHOD 71 

about that essential aspect of his thought. Hegel was 
dominated by the notion of a truth that should prove incon- 
trovertible, binding on everyone, and certain, which should be 
the truth, one, indivisible, eternal, objective, and necessary, to 
which all our particular thinking must lead as to its consum- 
mation. This is the dogmatic ideal, the postulate uncriticised, 
undoubted, and unchallenged, of all rationalisers in philosophy. 
"/ have never doubted" a recent writer says, that truth is 
universal and single and timeless, a single content or signi- 
ficance, one and whole and complete. 1 Advance in thinking, 
in the Hegelian universe, has in short to proceed by the words 
must be rather than by the weaker words may be, which are all 
that empiricists can use. 

Now Hegel found that his idea of an immanent movement 
through the field of concepts by way of " dialectic " negation 
played most beautifully into the hands of this rationalistic 
demand for something absolute and inconcussum in the way 
of truth. It is easy to see how. If you affirm anything, for 
example that A is, and simply leave the matter thus, you 
leave it at the mercy of anyone who may supervene and say, 
" Not A, but B is." If he does say so, your statement does not 
refute him : it simply contradicts him, just as his contradicts 
you. The only way of securing your affirmation about A is 
by getting it into a form which will by implication negate its 
negation in advance. The mere absence of negation is not 
enough ; it must be present, but present with its fangs drawn : 
your A must not only be an A, it must be a non-not-A as 
well ; it must already have cancelled all the B's or made them 
innocuous by having negated them already. Double negation 
is thus the only form of affirmation that fully plays into the 
hands of the dogmatic ideal. Simply and innocently affirma- 
tive statements are good enough for empiricists, but unfit for 
rationalist use, lying open as they do to every accidental 
contradictor, and exposed to every puff of doubt. The final 
truth must be something to which there is no imaginable 

1 Joachim, The Nature of Truth, Oxford, 1906, pp. 22, 178. 



72 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

alternative, because it contains all its alternatives inside of 
itself as moments already taken account of and overcome. It 
involves its own alternatives as elements of itself, is, in the 
phrase so often repeated, its own other, made so by the methode 
der absoluten negativitat. 

Formally, this scheme of an organism of truth that has 
already fed as it were on its own liability to death, so that, 
death once dead for it, there is no more dying then, is the very 
fulfilment of the rationalistic aspiration. That one and only 
one whole, with all its parts involved in it, negating and 
making one another impossible if abstracted and taken singly, 
but necessitating and holding one another in place if the whole 
of them be taken integrally, is the literal ideal sought after, 
it is the very diagram and picture of that notion of the truth 
with no outlying alternative, which so dominates the dogmatic 
imagination. Once we have taken in the features of the 
diagram that so successfully solves the world-old problem, the 
older ways of proving the necessity of judgments cease to 
give us satisfaction. Hegel's way we think must be the right 
one. The true must be essentially the self-reflecting self- 
contained recurrent, that which secures itself by including its 
own other and negating it, that makes a spherical system 
with no loose ends hanging out for foreignness to get a hold 
upon, that is for ever rounded in and closed, not strung along 
rectilinearly and open at its ends like that universe of simply 
collective or additive form that Hegel calls the world of the 
bad infinite, and that is all that empiricism, starting with 
simply posited single parts and elements, is ever able to 
attain to. 

No one can possibly deny the sublimity of this Hegelian 
conception. It is surely in the grand style, if there be such 
a thing as a grand style in philosophy. For us, however, it 
is so far a merely formal and diagrammatic conception, for 
with the actual content of absolute truth, as Hegel tries to 
set it forth, few disciples have been satisfied, and I do not 
propose to refer at all to the concreter parts of his philosophy. 



HEGEL AND HIS METHOD 73 

The main thing now is to grasp the vision, and feel the 
attractiveness of the abstract scheme of a statement self- 
secured by involving double negation. Absolutists who make 
no use of Hegel's own technique are really working by his 
method. Reality, according to them, is that which you 
implicitly affirm in the very attempt to deny it ; truth is that 
from which every variation proves self-contradictory: this is 
the supreme insight of rationalism, and to-day the best must- 
be's of rationalist argumentation are but so many attempts to 
communicate it to the hearer. Thus we can consider Hegel 
and the other absolutists to be supporting the same system. 
The next point I wish to dwell on is the part played by vicious 
intellect ualism in the system's structure. 

Rationalism in general thinks it gets the fulness of truth 
by turning away from sensation to conception, conception 
obviously giving the more universal and immutable picture. 
What I have just called vicious intellectualism is the habit of 
assuming that a concept Deludes from any reality conceived 
by its means everything not included in the concept's definition. 

Now Hegel himself in building up his method of double 
negation offers the vividest possible example of this vicious intel- 
lectualism. Every idea of a finite thing is of course a concept 
of that thing and not a concept of anything else. But Hegel 
treats this not being a concept of anything else as if it were 
equivalent to the concept of anything else not being, or, in other 
words, as if it were a denial or negation of everything else. 
Then, as the other things thus implicitly contradicted by the 
thing first conceived also by the same law contradict it, the 
pulse of dialectic begins to beat and the famous triads to grind 
out the cosmos. If anyone finds the process here to be a 
luminous one he must be left to the illumination, he must 
remain an undisturbed Hegelian. What others feel as the 
intolerable ambiguity, verbosity, and unscrupulousness of the 
master's way of deducing things, he will probably ascribe- 
since divine oracles are notoriously hard to interpret to the 
" difficulty " that habitually accompanies profundity. For my 



74 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

own part, there seems something grotesque and saugrenu in 
the pretension of a style so disobedient to the first rules of 
sound communication between minds, to be the authentic 
mother-tongue of reason, and to keep step more accurately 
than any other style does with the Absolute's own ways of 
thinking. I do not therefore take Hegel's technical apparatus 
seriously at all. I regard him rather as one of those numerous 
original seers who can never learn how to articulate. His 
would-be coercive logic counts for nothing in my eyes ; but 
that does not in the least impugn the philosophic importance 
of his conception of the Absolute if we take it merely hypo- 
thetically as one of the great types of cosmic vision. 

Taken thus hypothetically, it must be seriously discussed. 
But before doing so I must call attention to an odd peculiarity 
in the Hegelian procedure. Hegel considers that the immedi- 
ate finite data of experience are " untrue," because they are 
not " their own others." They are negated by what is external 
to them. The Absolute is true because it and it only has 
attained to being its own other. (These words sound queer 
enough, but readers who know a little of Hegel will follow 
them. ) Everything hinges here on whether the several pieces 
of finite experience may not be truly described when they are 
also said to be in any wise their own others. When conceptu- 
ally or intellectualistically treated, they, of course, cannot be 
their own others. Every abstract concept excludes what it 
does not include ; and if such concepts are adequate substitutes 
for reality's concrete pulses, the latter must square themselves 
with intellectualistic logic, and no one of them in any sense 
can claim to be its own other. If, however, the conceptual 
treatment of the flow of reality should prove for any good 
reason to be inadequate, and to have a practical rather than a 
theoretical or speculative value, then an independent empirical 
look into the constitution of reality's pulses might possibly 
show that some of them are their own others, in the self- 
same sense in which the Absolute is maintained to be so 
by Hegel. 



HEGEL AND HIS METHOD 75 

May not the remedy lie, then, rather in revising the in- 
tellectualist criticism than in first adopting it and then trying to 
undo its consequences by an arbitrary hypothesis ? May not the 
flux of our finite sensible experience itself contain a rationality 
that has been overlooked, so that the real remedy would con- 
sist in harking back to that rationality more intelligently, and 
not in advancing in the opposite direction away from it, and 
even away beyond the intellectualist criticism that disinte- 
grates it, to the pseudo-rationality of the supposed absolute 
point of view ? 

I myself believe that this is the real way to keep ration- 
ality in the world, and that the traditional rationalism has been 
facing in the wrong direction. 

In a later article on Professor Bergson, I shall summarise 
his criticism of the intellectualist type of rationalism. Mean- 
while, let me say that any unprejudiced look at our finite 
experiences reveals their continuity. The sense-world is not 
disintegrate, as Hegel and ordinary rationalism accuse it of 
being. Its parts, run into one another, are thus " their own 
others " in the only sense that that preposterously paradoxical 
expression can be made to bear. The cuts we think of as 
separating them are cuts made by ourselves. In short, if we 
only make our empiricism radical enough, it triumphs over all 
its foes. 

WILLIAM JAMES. 



INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION, 
F. C. S. SCHILLER. 

A DETACHED spectator of the follies of mankind could not but 
be profoundly impressed by the widespread interest which has 
been aroused throughout the world by the Pope's Encyclical 
against what is called Modernism. In many quarters the 
Papal condemnation is regarded as a sort of Congo atrocity in 
the spiritual world. But no reason is given why Protestants 
and Agnostics, Jews and Infidels, should interfere, even in 
thought, with the way in which internal discipline is adminis- 
tered in a Church which has always proclaimed its resolution 
to prescribe with authority and to enforce unquestioning 
obedience. Why should sympathy be lavished on persons who 
are oppressed because they refuse to liberate themselves by 
leaving an institution which excommunicates them ? In these 
days when no Church is strong enough to persecute effectively, 
and it has become quite an arguable position that the best way 
of furthering the spiritual development of mankind would be to 
break up all ecclesiastical institutions, why should Roman ways 
of enforcing discipline be denounced with indignation ? Why 
should not those who do not relish them be left to make their 
choice between submission and departure? They have been 
surreptitiously trying to combine the advantages of an ancient 
and highly picturesque community with those of an unrestricted 
freedom of individual thought ; they have been detected and 
sharply called to order. Why then should they be pitied and 
paradoxically helped from outside to stay inside by people who 
would gladly welcome them if they would come out ? 

76 



INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION 77 

In other quarters the Pope's procedure meets with strong 
approval, and rationalist philosophers may be heard condemn- 
ing Modernism as fervently as Pragmatism. The perplexities 
of the controversy, moreover, are only deepened when one 
observes how curiously vague and general are the Modernist's 
replies to the Papal accusations. It is all very well to denounce 
the obscurantism of the Vatican and to prophesy the disastrous 
failure of the Papal policy ; but it would have been more to 
the purpose to show how any other course would have been 
consistent with Papal authority. 

Thus the whole situation forcibly suggests a suspicion that 
the facts are not fully put before the public. Modernism is 
clearly suspected of being something far more dangerous and 
subversive than the Pope's examples prove ; and both its allies 
and its enemies appear to think that there is more at issue 
than merely the domestic question of what latitude of thought 
the Roman Church can tolerate. 

A belief that this is truly so, that this suspicion is amply 
justified, that the issue is really one of vital importance to the 
whole human race, and that this can be, and ought to be, made 
clear, is the raison d'etre of this article. 

What is really at stake and what really arouses so much 
interest is the claim to infallibility and the right to persecute 
on the one side, and the freedom of thought and the duty of 
toleration on the other. This it is that evokes so much feeling 
on both sides, when it is (more or less clearly) perceived ; and 
rightly, for the question is plainly one of universal import. It 
has not yet, however, been explained that the decision of this 
question does not rest with popes and theologians, but with 
philosophers and scientists ; for it depends ultimately on the 
view that is taken of Truth. 

Very few men understand the nature of infallibility. 
Nearly all, for example, would scout the idea that we may 
all be infallible, even the silliest of us, if we will only equip 
ourselves with a suitable view of Truth. In non-Catholic 
countries it is commonly supposed that the infallibility of the 



78 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Pope is the acme of theological extravagance, and that the 
Vatican Council of 1870 irretrievably stultified Romanism for 
ever in the eyes of reason by its enunciation of this monstrous 
dogma. In point of fact, infallibility is an essential postulate 
implicit in all rationalistic philosophy, and the dogma of 
the Roman Church is merely the religious formulation of a 
belief which it shares with nearly all its critics. The infalli- 
bility of the Pope differs from that of the philosopher and the 
common man only in being relatively reasonable and couched 
in singularly guarded and moderate terms. For the Pope, 
when he claims to be infallible, does not believe himself to be 
infallible on all and sundry subjects, but only when speaking 
on matters of religious faith, and that solemnly and in his 
capacity as head of an infallible Church. Whereas the 
common man claims infallibility for every thought that may 
chance to come into his head at any time, whether or not it 
agrees with what he said a moment ago. He attributes, more- 
over, to every one else a similar endowment with infallibility, 
regardless of the consequences. 

It is true, no doubt, that the man in the street is unaware 
of the monstrous claim he makes. But this does not alter the 
facts that both he and the Pope believe themselves to hold the 
same theory of Truth, and that this theory implies a claim 
to infallibility. The sole difference is that whereas the Pope 
draws its consequences consistently, cautiously, and with 
moderation, the man in the street does so inconsistently, 
wildly, and extravagantly. And then the latter turns upon 
the former and roundly accuses him of demanding what is 
repugnant to reason I 

Yet the Pope and the man in the street both believe in the 
existence of absolute truth. Both also believe in their own 
capacity to enunciate it. But an absolute truth is one which 
could not under any circumstances become false. Whoever 
enunciates it, therefore, could not (so far) possibly be wrong. 
But what is this but to claim infallibility ? 

As ordinarily assumed, however, this claim is wildly absurd. 



INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION 79 

For when men fail to agree in enunciating absolute truths, each 
has as good a right to think himself infallible as the other. 
Every man, therefore, who in good faith makes a statement 
he believes to be true, and believes that truth is absolute, must 
claim infallible truth for his statement, and infallibility pro tanto 
for himself its maker. He becomes a little pope in posse in his 
own eyes. And he must insist on enforcing his rights. All 
must agree with him. The facts that his pronouncements do 
not meet with universal acceptance, and indeed that no two 
men ever quite agree, cannot affect the theoretic validity of his 
claim. Nor can it be impugned by the fact that others put 
forward conflicting claims with equal assurance. Each must 
abide by his own vision of absolute truth. Whoever does not 
see the same as he does must be either a fool or a knave: 
a fool if he cannot see it, a knave if he will not admit that he 
sees it. He must be made to see it, therefore, by fair means 
or foul. The social consequences may be imagined. There 
must be war unceasing and unsparing upon earth, until one 
and the same Truth, immutable, infallible, and absolute, is 
established upon it, and is seen and accepted by all without 
exception. Thus persecution becomes a duty and tolerance 
a crime. 

Common Sense, of course, would be the first to shrink with 
horror from the consequences of its own doctrine. For, un- 
like philosophy, it will never press logic to absurdity. It will 
decline, therefore, to take the claim to infallibility with such 
tragic earnestness in practice. It will much prefer to point 
out that while no doubt it is imperative to believe that absolute 
truth exists, it would be decidedly presumptuous to suppose 
that any one hnd got it. In fact there is no very urgent 
necessity to regard absolute truth as anything but an ideal. 
In practice no one can really work with it. Not only does it 
lead to endless quarrels when different men all claim to be 
absolutely right, but even the same man entangles himself by 
enunciating incompatible truths with equal absoluteness at 
different times. And so it will finally suggest that perhaps 



80 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

this inconvenient infallibility had better be dropped, and even 
smile approval on a paradoxical philosopher who, perceiving 
the awkwardness of the situation, comes forward with proposals 
to attenuate its virulence by contending that though every 
judgment any one makes is necessarily infallible for the time 
being, yet there is nothing in this to prevent any one from 
superseding and annulling his infallible judgment by another 
equally infallible, and as shortlived, the moment after. 1 

It is clear, however, that reluctance to follow out the 
logical consequences of an unpalatable doctrine is not strictly 
the right way to atone for its initial ferocity. It is far more 
consistent to interpret absolute truth absolutistically than to 
draw its fangs in such a lax and easy-going democratic way. 
If, we should argue, absolute truth exists, it is clear that the 
common man has not got it. But some one must have it, 
else it would not exist, and then there would be no truth at 
all. Even if it is among the prerogatives of deity, it is reason- 
able to suppose that it has been deposited with some human 
representative. Let us search the world, therefore, for one 
whom we can regard as such a depositary of absolute truth, 
and submit to his authority. And whom shall we find to 
satisfy these conditions better than the Pope ? His infallibility 
is infinitely more credible than that of the man in the street. 

Such a train of thought must surely appeal very power- 
fully to all who feel a spiritual craving to submit themselves 
to authority, who long to shuffle off the responsibility for their 
acts, and to find some one who will guide and direct them. 
And their name is legion. If, therefore, there were no Pope, 
he would have to be invented for such souls. His Holiness 
need not fear that his faithful will desert him. There is no 
reason to think that the anima naturaliter Vaticana is 
becoming extinct. He must, however, eschew the restriction 
of his claim to faith and morals. The absolutistic view of 
truth logically demands that truth be fully unified. A 

1 Such is actually the purport of Mr F. H. Bradley 's doctrine of the 
infallibility of the last judgment (cf. Mind, N.S., No. 66). 



INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION 81 

plurality of authority implies a plurality of truth ; and this 
is inadmissible. The Pope, therefore, must be the infallible 
authority in art, politics, and science, as well as in religion. 
There is, moreover, a practical reason for this arrangement. 
If there is no single infallibility to cover the whole realm of 
thought, if there are a number of authorities all claiming to 
speak infallibly in the name of their respective sciences, it is 
impossible to avoid conflicts and collisions between them ; and 
this must discredit, weaken, and perhaps destroy, the whole 
principle of authority as such. 

Before, however, this unification of authorities is finally 
established, it is easy to predict that a prolonged period of 
painful contention must ensue. The world at present contains 
a great number of conflicting authorities, of which it is by no 
means clear that the Roman Church is the strongest and best 
fitted to survive ; it contains also many recalcitrants against 
all authority, and an appreciable number of philosophers who, 
though they insist on the absolute authority of reason, will 
admit no reason but their own. It seems improbable, there- 
fore, that this doctrine of the infallibility of those who speak 
in the name of absolute truth will make for social peace and 
quiet. For all parties are in duty bound by their allegiance 
to absolute truth to wage war unflinchingly upon all views 
but their own, and wherever they can to oppress, suppress, and 
persecute by all means in their power. History, therefore, 
will repeat itself. Its blood-stained pages tell too eloquently 
how thoroughly man has tried to live up to his obligations, 
and the psychological intolerance which has become so natural 
in man shows how deeply the corollaries of his belief in the 
absoluteness of truth have sunk into his soul. 

Is it not possible, therefore, to pay too high a price even 
for absolute truth ? In modern times there is probably a 
growing number of men to whom the price to be paid will 
seem excessive and such consequences seem repulsive. It is 
time, therefore, that for their benefit we considered the 
alternative which, apprehended with various degrees of clear- 
VOL. VII. No. 1. 6 



82 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

ness, underlies the modern revolt against mere authority, 
the Modernist attitude towards religion, and the extensive 
sympathy therewith. 

Let us return to the practical but illogical compromise 
whereby Common Sense robbed the intolerant belief in the 
absoluteness of Truth of all its terrors. A single step beyond 
it in the same direction will take us into a new world, a very 
paradise of freedom. Common Sense was willing to admit 
that in point of fact absolute truth was not in any man's 
possession, and that, however confident men might feel about 
the truth they had, they were often, if not always, victims of 
an illusion, and might as well allow for this possibility in their 
behaviour towards their fellows. For its immediate purpose of 
mitigating the acerbity of absolutist theory and securing social 
intercourse this compromise is plainly sufficient. It works 
well enough in practice. Theoretically, however, it is more 
than dubious. It is most unpleasantly and directly suggestive 
of sceptical inferences. If it is held that most men most of 
the time are deluded when they suppose themselves to be 
enunciating absolute truth, if it is impossible to show that any 
one ever succeeds in enunciating such a thing, what does the 
doctrine of absolute truth become but a subtle and insidious 
means of discrediting all human truths ? Is not this the 
explanation of that paradox of philosophic history, viz. that 
consistent rationalism always in the end collapses into 
scepticism ? 

It is clear then that absolute truth is not really an operative 
idea. It is an ideal that ever recedes into the distance when 
we try to grasp it. Men are not really infallible, and cannot 
treat each other as such. The truths they actually deal in are 
not absolute. The common sense belief that they are is really 
an ill-considered prejudice. 

Let us candidly confess, therefore, that not only do we not 
have absolute truth, but that what we have is enough to con- 
tent us. Let us boldly say that we do not need absolute 
truth, that it is a superfluity and an encumbrance, and get rid 



INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION 88 

of it in theory as well as in practice. Let us frame a new 
conception of Truth. Let us strip her aegis of the rigours 
and terrors that compelled reluctant assent but rendered her 
unapproachable in her warlike armour, and teach her to dwell 
peaceably in our midst, to speak our language, and to interest 
herself in our life. Let us, in a word, humanise Truth, instead 
of idolising her as a goddess who is more than half a demon. 
Let us define the true no longer as what is cogent and com- 
pulsory and irresistible, but as what is attractive and valuable 
and satisfying. Let Truth mean whatever can satisfy our 
cognitive cravings, whatever can answer a logical problem. 
And let it mean our best answer for the time being. Let 
it be conceived, that is, as essentially progressive and 
improvable, and therefore as superseded by new truth and 
turning into error so soon as something superior to the old 
dawns upon any human soul. 

Thus Truth will no longer shine upon us from afar with the 
dim glimmer of an infinitely distant nebula. It will no longer 
dazzle us with the delusive flashes of a will-o'-the-wisp that 
is really " error." It will be a torch kindled by human will 
and wielded by human hands (or rather a succession of such 
torches), always lighting the way for man as he passes onwards. 
The objects it illumines will come into its sphere as man's 
life requires them ; they will drop back into the limbo of the 
useless, out of which they were drawn, as they are used up or 
improved upon. 

From such a reconstitution of the idea of Truth it is clear 
that man must gain immensely. And, apart from the glamour 
of words, even Truth will lose nothing. Even its absoluteness 
is not lost. It is only avowed to be what it is an ideal, the 
culmination of Truth's working value, the perfect satisfaction 
of every cognitive ambition. As such it may still yield the 
remote and emotional consolation which was all it could 
afford before, when the illusions of verbiage were purged 
away. The human truth which alone we have and alone we 
need, on the other hand, will be a very real and potent 



84 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

influence. It must enormously enlarge the liberty of thought. 
It must enormously enhance humaneness of discussion. It 
must utterly explode the foundations of dogmatism and 
intolerance. 

For nothing at first can be " true " but what can commend 
itself to some one and satisfy some spiritual need. Conversely, 
whatever can do this can claim " truth " ; it has a claim to 
be heard and tested, even though it be merely the fleeting 
inspiration of a moment. Every man has a vote in the 
making of truth ; any man's truth may be elected, any man's 
vote may decide the election. But no man has a right to 
use force ; no man has a right to impose his convictions on 
any other: superior attractiveness alone effects conversions 
in the conflict of opinions. Nor has any one a right to argue 
that because he is right every one else must be wrong : Truth 
is plural, and can adjust herself to every man's sight and point 
of view. Hence an indefinite variety of truths may be valid 
relatively to a variety of differently constituted and situated 
persons. Toleration mounts the throne left vacant by 
Infallibility. 

But what a blasphemous travesty of Truth, what a hideous 
anarchy it all must seem to absolutists, dogmatists, pedants, 
authoritarians of all sorts ! How it must seem to them to 
shiver into atoms the whole edifice of Truth and the founda- 
tions of all intellectual order ! No wonder they must support 
Rome against the inroads of such modernity ! No wonder 
they are almost speechless with horror and incoherent with 
indignation ! For the mirage of an absolute Truth in the skies 
is dissolved beyond recall, and its worshippers are left desolate. 
To them it seemed the real thing. It never was the real 
thing, and they have lost nothing but an illusion. But they 
do not, and perhaps will not, see this. All that was of 
real value remains. The terrestrial realities remain of which 
the celestial phantasmagoria was the reflexion. There re- 
mains the practical necessity of living together and agreeing 
upon the conditions of a common life. Man remains with his 



INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION 85 

gregarious nature, his lack of originality, his respect for tradi- 
tion, his easy acquiescence in the habitual, his dislike of in- 
novation, his preference for order and system, his eagerness to 
think the world a cosmos in short, with all the forces that 
weld society together. 

More than enough remains, therefore, for the compacting 
of our intellectual order. The "real" and "objective" be- 
comes that which it is socially convenient to recognise, in 
a rich variety of senses. " Objective truth " will be that 
which all or most can agree on. It articulates itself into 
systems of truths which are more substantial, more useful, and 
probably more durable, than the transcendent vision which 
was sacrificed. Certainly these systems are at present plural, 
not because Truth cannot be conceived as one for the plural 
truths can easily be conceived as converging towards a single 
consummation but because men do not agree. Whether 
they can agree remains to be seen ; they have every motive to 
agree, and have lost the strong stimulus they had to insist 
obstinately on their individual infallibility. But, on the other 
hand, the notion of agreement has itself become easier : men 
can agree to differ ; they can maintain all individual views 
which do not clash with those of others or lead to social dis- 
cord. In short, the existing situation will be altered only by 
the infusion of a more tolerant temper into all opinions. 

But has not all this carried us far away from the Modernist 
movement in the Church of Rome? Not at all; it has 
brought us to its core. Modernism is essentially the recogni 
tion by certain more enlightened or sensitive clerics of the 
intellectual forces which are drawing men in religion, as in 
science and philosophy, towards the humanistic conception of 
Truth which we have sketched. They have perceived at last 
what the lives of laymen have always dumbly attested, that 
religion is not primarily a matter of theology but of religious 
experience, and nowhere reducible to a rigid chain of incon- 
trovertible syllogisms. They have therefore abandoned the 
intellectualistic travesties of religion, which kill its spirit to 



86 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

embalm its letter, and offer long strings of pseudo-rational 
propositions as a satisfaction to a reason which easily detects 
their imposture and is itself seeking for something more 
nutritious than pure intellect. But such dogmas, as M. Leroy 
has shown, 1 are utter failures as purely intellectual propositions : 
they neither can nor do compel assent; as such, they can 
neither be defended nor even made to mean anything that 
matters. So to understand the meaning of dogmas and the 
nature of religious beliefs is a fatal mistake. They are not 
really intellectual products at all, and therefore cannot be 
attacked (or defended) as such. No religion really rests on 
the impersonal support of pure reason ; nor can it be kept 
from moving with the times by chains of rusty syllogisms. 
For the truth is that dogmas are essentially secondary ex- 
pressions of the vital value of a religion, the by-products of a 
spiritual life that was never nourished on pure intellect. They 
are, as it were, the lifeless fossils of a living faith, and remain 
unmeaning marvels unless they are re-enveloped in the life 
which grew them. That life, moreover, is primarily an indi- 
vidual attitude of soul: however closely it is wrapped in a 
spiritual environment, each soul must nourish itself and grow 
in its own congenial fashion. 

The chief paradox of the situation is that these facts of 
the spiritual life should have been so intensely perceived in 
the Roman Church. For at first sight they look such a 
supreme vindication of Protestantism, such a sanctioning by 
psychologic science of the evangelical or mystic. But it 
must never be forgotten that, like all science, psychology is 
catholic and impartial. Every religion may be vindicated by 
the psychologic tests in so far as it is genuine, i.e. really 
nourishes the spiritual life. It speaks well for the intelligence 
of the Catholic Modernists that they should have discovered 
this. But they discovered also that the idea of a Church, 
of an historical association with a corporate confidence in the 
truth of its position, has very great religious value. There 

1 Dogme el Critique. 



INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION 87 

is little doubt that the Roman Church could flourish exceed- 
ingly on Modernist lines. 

But will it prefer to do so ? It is very hard to say. It 
must be a very hard question to decide for the astute directors 
of Papal policy. Superficially, no doubt, the present indica- 
tions are that this bold and novel policy will not be adopted, 
that Modernism will be crushed, that Medievalism will prevail, 
and that a mechanical uniformity will be enforced, even at 
the cost of schism. But appearances are nowhere more de- 
ceptive than in matters ecclesiastical, and history does not 
confirm the view that the Pope always knows his own business 
best. It is quite conceivable that in due course, when the 
more cautious sympathisers with modern thought have risen 
by dint of years to the higher posts in the hierarchy, and the 
pressure of circumstances has convinced the less fanatical 
conservatives that something must be done, some successor of 
Pius X. will be moved to issue another Encyclical which, 
after splitting a vast number of hairs to prove that what is 
now sanctioned is not identical with what was condemned 
before, will define the sense in which a Modernist attitude 
may be permitted, and concede the substance of what has 
lately been denied. 

There would be both psychological and historical warrant 
for this prophecy. The opposition to any novelty of thought 
is always largely a matter of individual psychology. The 
human mind becomes less open to new impressions as it 
grows older, and in all institutions the high authorities are 
always old, and often stupidly conservative. Progressiveness 
and open-mindedness are tender plants which must be care- 
fully cultivated, and often forced. Historical analogy points 
to the same conclusion. The making of dogmas usually ends 
by making orthodoxy a razor-edge between two opposite 
heresies which have been successively condemned. It is 
formulated so as to conceal the facts that when new ideas 
arose the old men in authority conservatively condemned 
them, and that when, nevertheless, they triumphed, words 



88 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

had to be found that would not break too abruptly with the 
old traditions. 

Such, however, are what may be regarded as the normal 
psychological and political obstacles to the progress of human 
thought, and they are in no wise peculiar to the Roman 
Church. What complicates the situation in her case is that 
there are other serious objections to innovation which render 
her the least likely of the Churches to modernise her basis. 
By so doing she could probably purchase an ignoble peace and 
enduring prosperity, but only at the cost of two things 
which have hitherto been very dear to her. In the first place, 
she would have to renounce the right to persecute. Truly a 
trivial matter this, it may be thought, seeing that it cannot 
nowadays be exercised. But it is one thing to suspend it in 
practice and for prudential reasons, and quite another to give 
it up in theory and on principle. Principles which cannot be 
carried into practice often grow all the dearer for their pathetic 
impotence, as is proved by intellectualist philosophies. More- 
over, to renounce this right would not only break with much 
historical tradition, but would also sacrifice the ambition of 
recovering the lost power of the Church. 

Secondly, the right of making dogmas (of the old quasi- 
rational sort) would have to be abandoned. The Church 
would have to follow the example set by science and, more 
recently, by philosophy. Science for some time past has been 
too busy and too rapidly progressive to find it worth while 
to formulate into fixed dogmas her working theories, which, 
in the words of Professor J. J. Thomson, form " a policy and 
not a creed." It has grown accustomed to use them merely 
for what they are worth, and so long as they are worth it. In 
philosophy the discovery of the proper attitude towards dogmas 
has been of slower growth, though philosophic Humanism is 
quite clear as to their value. 

But religion hitherto has always stood for the eternal fixity 
of dogma, once it has been defined. In most Churches, indeed, 
this power of making dogma has long been in abeyance. They 



INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION 89 

have been too tightly wedged into an antiquated creed which 
none of its members could construe literally, or tied to some 
paralysing political concordat, or too loosely organised to act 
corporately. But this inability has usually been construed as 
a disability, and the power of making dogma has seemed a 
mark of the superior progressiveness and unity of Rome. 
Acceptance of Modernism, however, would mean the sacrifice 
of this flattering prerogative. 

Here again, however, it might be argued that the apparent 
loss would be a real gain. For the making of dogma is always 
a perilous business. In making dogmas it is hard to avoid 
making heretics. And the more heretics a Church makes 
the less " catholic " does it become. It is extraordinary what 
losses the Roman Church has incurred by her indulgence in 
the dogma-making instinct. Was a disagreement about the 
calculating of that most inconveniently migratory festival, 
Easter, worth the bisection and permanent weakening of 
Christendom ? Was the defining of the Trinity and the 
Incarnation worth the loss of Africa and Asia to Moham- 
medanism, and the destruction of the best of the Northerners, 
the Arian Goths? The world in all probability would long 
ago have been Christian, the Roman Church would have been 
truly " catholic," but for the disastrous practice of defining 
dogmas, and the intolerance of which this was the cause and 
the effect. Will history repeat itself ? Will dogma be made 
though the angels weep? Will Rome decide in accordance 
with her past traditions, fiat dogma, mat coeluml It will be 
immensely hard to break with them, and the traditional policy 
will necessarily have immense strength. But who can say ? 
Not even Pius X. But the situation is very interesting, though 
decidedly more comfortable for those who can watch from 
without the distractions of an embarrassed Church. 

F. C. S. SCHILLER. 

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD. 



A NEGLECTED ARGUMENT FOR 
THE REALITY OF GOD. 

C. S. PE1RCE. 

I. 

THE word " God," so " capitalised " (as we Americans say), is 
tlie definable proper name, signifying Ens necessarium ; in my 
belief Really creator of all three Universes of Experience. 

Some words shall herein be capitalised when used, not as 
vernacular, but as terms defined. Thus an " idea " is the 
substance of an actual unitary thought or fancy ; but " Idea," 
nearer Plato's idea of tSe'a, denotes anything whose Being con- 
sists in its mere capacity for getting fully represented, regardless 
of any person's faculty or impotence to represent it. 

" Real " is a word invented in the thirteenth century to 
signify having Properties, i.e. characters sufficing to identify 
their subject, and possessing these whether they be anywise 
attributed to it by any single man or group of men, or not. 
Thus, the substance of a dream is not Real, since it was such 
as it was, merely in that a dreamer so dreamed it ; but the fact 
of the dream is Real, if it was dreamed ; since if so, its date, 
the name of the dreamer, etc., make up a set of circumstances 
sufficient to distinguish it from all other events ; and these 
belong to it, i.e. would be true if predicated of it, whether 
A, B, or C Actually ascertains them or not. The " Actual " 
is that which is met with in the past, present, or future. 

An " Experience " is a brutally produced conscious effect 
that contributes to a habit, self-controlled, yet so satisfying, on 



THE REALITY OF GOD 91 

deliberation, as to be destructible by no positive exercise of 
internal vigour. I use the word " self-controlled " for " con- 
trolled by the thinker's self," and not for "uncontrolled" 
except in its own spontaneous, i.e. automatic, self-development, 
as Professor J. M. Baldwin uses the word. Take for illustration 
the sensation undergone by a child that puts its forefinger into a 
flame with the acquisition of a habit of keeping all its members 
out of all flames. A compulsion is " Brute," whose immediate 
efficacy nowise consists in conformity to rule or reason. 

Of the three Universes of Experience familiar to us all, 
the first comprises all mere Ideas, those airy nothings to which 
the mind of poet, pure mathematician, or another might give 
local habitation and a name within that mind. Their very 
airy-nothingness, the fact that their Being consists in mere 
capability of getting thought, not in anybody's Actually 
thinking them, saves their Reality. The second Universe is 
that of the Brute Actuality of things and facts. I am con- 
fident that their Being consists in reactions against Brute 
forces, notwithstanding objections redoubtable until they are 
closely and fairly examined. The third Universe comprises 
everything whose being consists in active power to establish 
connections between different objects, especially between 
objects in different Universes. Such is everything which is 
essentially a Sign not the mere body of the Sign, which is not 
essentially such, but, so to speak, the Sign's Soul, which has 
its Being in its power of serving as intermediary between its 
Object and a Mind. Such, too, is a living consciousness, and 
such the life, the power of growth, of a plant. Such is a living 
constitution a daily newspaper, a great fortune, a social 
" movement." 

An "Argument" is any process of thought reasonably 
tending to produce a definite belief. An " Argumentation " is 
an Argument proceeding upon definitely formulated premisses. 

If God Really be, and be benign, then, in view of the 
generally conceded truth that religion, were it but proved, 
would be a good outweighing all others, we should naturally 



92 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

expect that there would be some Argument for His Reality 
that should be obvious to all minds, high and low alike, that 
should earnestly strive to find the truth of the matter ; and 
further, that this Argument should present its conclusion, not 
as a proposition of metaphysical theology, but in a form directly 
applicable to the conduct of life, and full of nutrition for 
man's highest growth. What I shall refer to as the N.A. 
the Neglected Argument seems to me best to fulfil this 
condition, and I should not wonder if the majority of those 
whose own reflections have harvested belief in God must 
bless the radiance of the N. A. for that wealth. Its persuasive- 
ness is no less than extraordinary ; while it is not unknown 
to anybody. Nevertheless, of all those theologians (within my 
little range of reading) who, with commendable assiduity, 
scrape together all the sound reasons they can find or concoct 
to prove the first proposition of theology, few mention this 
one, and they most briefly. They probably share those current 
notions of logic which recognise no other Arguments than 
Argumentations. 

There is a certain agreeable occupation of mind which, 
from its having no distinctive name, I infer is not as commonly 
practised as it deserves to be ; for indulged in moderately say 
through some five to six per cent, of one's waking time, perhaps 
during a stroll it is refreshing enough more than to repay the 
expenditure. Because it involves no purpose save that of 
casting aside all serious purpose, I have sometimes been half- 
inclined to call it reverie, with some qualification ; but for a 
frame of mind so antipodal to vacancy and dreaminess such a 
designation would be too excruciating a misfit. In fact, it is 
Pure Play. Now, Play, we all know, is a lively exercise of 
one's powers. Pure Play has no rules, except this very law 
of liberty. It bloweth where it listeth. It has no purpose, 
unless recreation. The particular occupation I mean a petite 
bouchee with the Universes may take either the form of 
esthetic contemplation, or that of distant castle-building 
(whether in Spain or within one's own moral training), or 



THE REALITY OF GOD 93 

that of considering some wonder in one of the Universes, or 
some connection between two of the three, with speculation 
concerning its cause. It is this last kind I will call it 
"Musement" on the whole that I particularly recommend, 
because it will in time flower into the N.A. One who sits 
down with the purpose of becoming convinced of the truth 
of religion is plainly not inquiring in scientific singleness of 
heart, and must always suspect himself of reasoning unfairly. 
So he can never attain the entirety even of a physicist's belief 
in electrons, although this is avowedly but provisional. But 
let religious meditation be allowed to grow up spontaneously 
out of Pure Play without any breach of continuity, and the 
Muser will retain the perfect candour proper to Musement. 

If one who had determined to make trial of Musement 
as a favourite recreation were to ask me for advice, I should 
reply as follows : The dawn and the gloaming most invite 
one to Musement ; but I have found no watch of the 
nychthemeron that has not its own advantages for the pursuit. 
It begins passively enough with drinking in the impression 
of some nook in one of the three Universes. But impression 
soon passes into attentive observation, observation into 
musing, musing into a lively give-and-take of communion 
between self and self. If one's observations and reflections 
are allowed to specialise themselves too much, the Play will 
be converted into scientific study ; and that cannot be pursued 
in odd half-hours. 

I should add: adhere to the one ordinance of Play, the 
law of liberty. I can testify that the last half century, at 
least, has never lacked tribes of Sir Oracles, colporting 
brocards to bar off one or another roadway of inquiry ; and 
a Rabelais would be needed to bring out all the fun that has 
been packed in their airs of infallibility. Auguste Comte, 
notwithstanding his having apparently produced some unques- 
tionably genuine thinking, was long the chief of such a band. 
The vogue of each particular maxim of theirs was necessarily 
brief. For what distinction can be gained by repeating saws 



94 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

heard from all mouths ? No bygone fashion seems more 
grotesque than a panache of obsolete wisdom. I remember 
the days when a pronouncement all the rage was that no 
science must borrow the methods of another ; the geologist 
must not use a microscope, nor the astronomer a spectro- 
scope. Optics must not meddle with electricity, nor logic 
with algebra. But twenty years later, if you aspired to pass 
for a commanding intellect, you would have to pull a long 
face and declare that " It is not the business of science to 
search for origins." This maxim was a masterpiece, since 
no timid soul, in dread of being thought naive, would dare 
inquire what " origins " were, albeit the secret confessor within 
his breast compelled the awful self-acknowledgment of his 
having no idea into what else than " origins " of phenomena 
(in some sense of that indefinite word) man can inquire. 
That human reason can comprehend some causes is past 
denial, and once we are forced to recognise a given element 
in experience, it is reasonable to await positive evidence before 
we complicate our acknowledgment with qualifications. 
Otherwise, why venture beyond direct observation? Illus- 
trations of this principle abound in physical science. Since, 
then, it is certain that man is able to understand the laws 
and the causes of some phenomena, it is reasonable to assume, 
in regard to any given problem, that it would get rightly 
solved by man, if a sufficiency of time and attention were 
devoted to it. Moreover, those problems that at first blush 
appear utterly insoluble receive, in that very circumstance, as 
Edgar Poe remarked in his The Murders in the Rue Morgue, 
their smoothly-fitting keys. This particularly adapts them to 
the Play of Musement. 

Forty or fifty minutes of vigorous and unslackened analytic 
thought bestowed upon one of them usually suffices to educe 
from it all there is to educe, its general solution. There is 
no kind of reasoning that I should wish to discourage in 
Musement ; and I should lament to find anybody confining 
it to a method of such moderate fertility as logical analysis. 



THE REALITY OF GOD 95 

Only, the Player should bear in mind that the higher weapons 
in the arsenal of thought are not play -things but edge-tools. 
In any mere Play they can be used by way of exercise alone ; 
while logical analysis can be put to its full efficiency in 
Musement. So, continuing the counsels that had been asked 
of me, I should say, " Enter your skiff of Musement, push 
off into the lake of thought, and leave the breath of heaven 
to swell your sail. With your eyes open, awake to what is 
about or within you, and open conversation with yourself; 
for such is all meditation." It is, however, not a conversation 
in words alone, but is illustrated, like a lecture, with diagrams 
and with experiments. 

Different people have such wonderfully different ways of 
thinking, that it would be far beyond my competence to say 
what courses Musements might not take ; but a brain endowed 
with automatic control, as man's indirectly is, is so naturally 
and rightly interested in its own faculties that some psycho- 
logical and semi-psychological questions would doubtless get 
touched ; such, in the latter class, as this : Darwinians, with 
truly surprising ingenuity, have concocted, and with still more 
astonishing confidence have accepted as proved, one explana- 
tion for the diverse and delicate beauties of flowers, another 
for those of butterflies, and so on ; but why is all nature the 
forms of trees, the compositions of sunsets suffused with such 
beauties throughout, and not nature only, but the other two 
Universes as well ? Among more purely psychological ques- 
tions, the nature of pleasure and pain will be likely to attract 
attention. Are they mere qualities of feeling, or are they 
rather motor instincts attracting us to some feelings and 
repelling others ? Have pleasure and pain the same sort of 
constitution, or are they contrasted in this respect, pleasure 
arising upon the formation or strengthening of an association 
by resemblance, and pain upon the weakening or disruption of 
such a habit or conception ? 

Psychological speculations will naturally lead on to musings 
upon metaphysical problems proper, good exercise for a mind 



96 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

with a turn for exact thought. It is here that one finds those 
questions that at first seem to offer no handle for reason's 
clutch, but which readily yield to logical analysis. But 
problems of metaphysics will inevitably present themselves 
that logical analysis will not suffice to solve. Some of the 
best will be motived by a desire to comprehend universe-wide 
aggregates of unformulated but partly experienced phenomena. 
I would suggest that the Muser be not too impatient to 
analyse these, lest some significant ingredient be lost in the 
process ; but that he begin by pondering them from every 
point of view, until he seems to read some truth beneath the 
phenomena. 

At this point a trained mind will demand that an exam- 
ination be made of the truth of the interpretation ; and 
the first step in such examination must be a logical analysis 
of the theory. But strict examination would be a task a 
little too serious for the Musement of hour-fractions, and if 
it is postponed there will be ample remuneration even in the 
suggestions that there is not time to examine ; especially since 
a few of them will appeal to reason as all but certain. 

Let the Muser, for example, after well appreciating, in its 
breadth and depth, the unspeakable variety of each Universe, 
turn to those phenomena that are of the nature of homogenei- 
ties of connectedness in each ; and what a spectacle will unroll 
itself ! As a mere hint of them 1 may point out that every 
small part of space, however remote, is bounded by just such 
neighbouring parts as every other, without a single exception 
throughout immensity. The matter of Nature is in every star 
of the same elementary kinds, and (except for variations of 
circumstance) what is more wonderful still, throughout the 
whole visible universe, about the same proportions of the 
different chemical elements prevail. Though the mere cata- 
logue of known carbon-compounds alone would fill an 
unwieldy volume, and perhaps, if the truth were known, the 
number of amido-acids alone is greater, yet it is unlikely that 
there are in all more than about 600 elements, of which 500 



THE REALITY OF GOD 97 

dart through space too swiftly to be held down by the earth's 
gravitation, coronium being the slowest-moving of these. This 
small number bespeaks comparative simplicity of structure. 
Yet no mathematician but will confess the present hopeless- 
ness of attempting to comprehend the constitution of the 
hydrogen-atom, the simplest of the elements that can be 
held to earth. 

From speculations on the homogeneities of each Universe, 
the Muser will naturally pass to the consideration of homo- 
geneities and connections between two different Universes, or 
all three. Especially in them all we find one type of occur- 
rence, that of growth, itself consisting in the homogeneities of 
small parts. This is evident in the growth of motion into 
displacement, and the growth of force into motion. In growth, 
too, we find that the three Universes conspire ; and a universal 
feature of it is provision for later stages in earlier ones. This 
is a specimen of certain lines of reflection which will inevitably 
suggest the hypothesis of God's Reality. It is not that such 
phenomena might not be capable of being accounted for, in 
one sense, by the action of chance with the smallest conceivable 
dose of a higher element ; for if by God be meant the Ens 
necessarium, that very hypothesis requires that such should be 
the case. But the point is that that sort of explanation leaves 
a mental explanation just as needful as before. Tell me, upon 
sufficient authority, that all cerebration depends upon move- 
ments of neurites that strictly obey certain physical laws, and 
that thus all expressions of thought, both external and internal, 
receive a physical explanation, and I shall be ready to believe 
you. But if you go on to say that this explodes the theory 
that my neighbour and myself are governed by reason, and are 
thinking beings, I must frankly say that it will not give me a 
high opinion of your intelligence. But however that may be, 
in the Pure Play of Musement the idea of God's Reality will 
be sure sooner or later to be found an attractive fancy, which 
the Muser will develop in various ways. The more he ponders 

it, the more it will find response in every part of his mind, for 
VOL. VII. No. 1. 7 



98 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

its beauty, for its supplying an ideal of life, and for its 
thoroughly satisfactory explanation of his whole threefold 

environment. 

II. 

The hypothesis of God is a peculiar one, in that it supposes 
an infinitely incomprehensible object, although every hypothesis, 
as such, supposes its object to be truly conceived in the 
hypothesis. This leaves the hypothesis but one way of under- 
standing itself; namely, as vague yet as true so far as it is 
definite, and as continually tending to define itself more and 
more, and without limit. The hypothesis, being thus itself 
inevitably subject to the law of growth, appears in its vague- 
ness to represent God as so, albeit this is directly contradicted 
in the hypothesis from its very first phase. But this apparent 
attribution of growth to God, since it is ineradicable from the 
hypothesis, cannot, according to the hypothesis, be flatly false. 
Its implications concerning the Universes will be maintained 
in the hypothesis, while its implications concerning God will 
be partly disavowed, and yet held to be less false than their 
denial would be. Thus the hypothesis will lead to our 
thinking of features of each Universe as purposed ; and this 
will stand or fall with the hypothesis. Yet a purpose essen- 
tially involves growth, and so cannot be attributed to God. 
Still it will, according to the hypothesis, be less false to speak 
so than to represent God as purposeless. 

Assured as I am from my own personal experience that 
every man capable of so controlling his attention as to perform 
a little exact thinking will, if he examines Zeno's argument 
about Achilles and the tortoise, come to think, as I do, that it 
is nothing but a contemptible catch, I do not think that I 
either am or ought to be less assured, from what I know of 
the effects of Musement on myself and others, that any normal 
man who considers the three Universes in the light of the 
hypothesis of God's Reality, and pursues that line of reflection 
in scientific singleness of heart, will come to be stirred to the 
depths of his nature by the beauty of the idea and by its 



THE REALITY OF GOD 99 

august practicality, even to the point of earnestly loving and 
adoring his strictly hypothetical God, and to that of desiring 
above all things to shape the whole conduct of life and all the 
springs of action into conformity with that hypothesis. Now 
to be deliberately and thoroughly prepared to shape one's 
conduct into conformity with a proposition is neither more 
nor less than the state of mind called Believing that proposition, 
however long the conscious classification of it under that head 

be postponed. 

III. 

There is my poor sketch of the Neglected Argument, 
greatly cut down to bring it within the limits assigned to 
this article. Next should come the discussion of its logicality ; 
but nothing readable at a sitting could possibly bring home 
to readers my full proof of the principal points of such an 
examination. I can only hope to make the residue of this 
paper a sort of table of contents, from which some may 
possibly guess what I have to say ; or to lay down a series of 
plausible points through which the reader will have to con- 
struct the continuous line of reasoning for himself. In my 
own mind the proof is elaborated, and I am exerting my 
energies to getting it submitted to public censure. My 
present abstract will divide itself into three unequal parts. 
The first shall give the headings of the different steps of 
every well-conducted and complete inquiry, without noticing 
possible divergencies from the norm. I shall have to mention 
some steps which have nothing to do with the Neglected 
Argument in order to show that they add no jot nor tittle 
to the truth which is invariably brought just as the Neglected 
Argument brings it. The second part shall very briefly state, 
without argument (for which there is no room), just wherein 
lies the logical validity of the reasoning characteristic of each 
of the main stages of inquiry. The third part shall indicate 
the place of the Neglected Argument in a complete inquiry 
into the Reality of God, and shall show how well it would 
fill that place, and what its logical value is supposing the 



100 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

inquiry to be limited to this ; and I shall add a few words to 
show how it might be supplemented. 

Every inquiry whatsoever takes its rise in the observation, 
in one or another of the three Universes, of some surprising 
phenomenon, some experience which either disappoints an 
expectation, or breaks in upon some habit of expectation of 
the inquisiturus ; and each apparent exception to this rule only 
confirms it. There are obvious distinctions between the 
objects of surprise in different cases ; but throughout this 
slight sketch of inquiry such details will be unnoticed, 
especially since it is upon such that the logic-books descant. 
The inquiry begins with pondering these phenomena in all 
their aspects, in the search of some point of view whence the 
wonder shall be resolved. At length a conjecture arises that 
furnishes a possible Explanation, by which I mean a syllogism 
exhibiting the surprising fact as necessarily consequent upon 
the circumstances of its occurrence together with the truth of 
the credible conjecture, as premisses. On account of this 
Explanation, the inquirer is led to regard his conjecture, or 
hypothesis, with favour. As I phrase it, he provisionally holds 
it to be " Plausible " ; this acceptance ranges in different 
cases and reasonably so from a mere expression of it in the 
interrogative mood, as a question meriting attention and reply, 
up through all appraisals of Plausibility, to uncontrollable 
inclination to believe. The whole series of mental perform- 
ances between the notice of the wonderful phenomenon 
and the acceptance of the hypothesis, during which the 
usually docile understanding seems to hold the bit between 
its teeth and to have us at its mercy the search for pertinent 
circumstances and the laying hold of them, sometimes without 
our cognisance, the scrutiny of them, the dark labouring, the 
bursting out of the startling conjecture, the remarking of its 
smooth fitting to the anomaly, as it is turned back and forth 
like a key in a lock, and the final estimation of its Plausibility, 
I reckon as composing the First Stage of Inquiry. Its 
characteristic formula of reasoning I term Retroduction, i.e. 



THE REALITY OF GOD 101 

reasoning from consequent to antecedent. In one respect 
the designation seems inappropriate; for in most instances 
where conjecture mounts the high peaks of Plausibility and 
is really most worthy of confidence the inquirer is unable 
definitely to formulate just what the explained wonder is ; or 
can only do so in the light of the hypothesis. In short, it is 
a form of Argument rather than of Argumentation. 

Retroduction does not afford security. The hypothesis 
must be tested. 

This testing, to be logically valid, must honestly start, 
not as Retroduction starts, with scrutiny of the phenomena, 
but with examination of the hypothesis, and a muster of all 
sorts of conditional experiential consequences which would 
follow from its truth. This constitutes the Second Stage of 
Inquiry. For its characteristic form of reasoning our language 
has, for two centuries, been happily provided with the name 
Deduction. 

Deduction has two parts. For its first step must be by 
logical analysis to Explicate the hypothesis, i.e. to render it 
as perfectly distinct as possible. This process, like Retroduc- 
tion, is Argument that is not Argumentation. But unlike 
Retroduction, it cannot go wrong from lack of experience, but 
so long as it proceeds rightly must reach a true conclusion. 
Explication is followed by Demonstration, or Deductive 
Argumentation. Its procedure is best learned from Book I. 
of Euclid's Elements, a masterpiece which in real insight is far 
superior to Aristotle's Analytics-, and its numerous fallacies 
render it all the more instructive to a close student. It invari- 
ably requires something of the nature of a diagram ; that is, an 
" Icon," or Sign that represents its Object in resembling it. It 
usually, too, needs " Indices," or Signs that represent their 
Objects by being actually connected with them. But it is 
mainly composed of " Symbols," or Signs that represent their 
Objects essentially because they will be so interpreted. Demon- 
stration should be Corollarial when it can. An accurate 
definition of Corollarial Demonstration would require a long 



102 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

explanation ; but it will suffice to say that it limits itself to 
considerations already introduced or else involved in the Ex- 
plication of its conclusion; while Theorematic Demonstration 
resorts to a more complicated process of thought. 

The purpose of Deduction, that of collecting consequents 
of the hypothesis, having been sufficiently carried out, the 
inquiry enters upon its Third Stage, that of ascertaining how 
far those consequents accord with Experience, and of judging 
accordingly whether the hypothesis is sensibly correct, or 
requires some inessential modification, or must be entirely 
rejected. Its characteristic way of reasoning is Induction. 
This stage has three parts. For it must begin with Classifica- 
tion, which is an Inductive Non-argumentational kind of 
Argument, by which general Ideas are attached to objects of 
Experience ; or rather by which the latter are subordinated to 
the former. Following this will come the testing-argumenta- 
tions, the Probations ; and the whole inquiry will be wound 
up with the Sentential part of the Third Stage, which, by 
Inductive reasonings, appraises the different Probations singly, 
then their combinations, then makes self-appraisal of these 
very appraisals themselves, and passes final judgment on the 
whole result. 

The Probations, or direct Inductive Argumentations, are 
of two kinds. The first is that which Bacon ill described as 
" inductio ilia quce procedit per enumerationem simplicem" So 
at least he has been understood. For an enumeration of 
instances is not essential to the argument that, for example, 
there are no such beings as fairies, or no such events as 
miracles. The point is that there is no well-established in- 
stance of such a thing. I call this Crude Induction. It is 
the only Induction which concludes a logically Universal 
Proposition. It is the weakest of arguments, being liable to 
be demolished in a moment, as happened toward the end of 
the eighteenth century to the opinion of the scientific world 
that no stones fall from the sky. The other kind is Gradual 
Induction, which makes a new estimate of the proportion of 



THE REALITY OF GOD 103 

truth in the hypothesis with every new instance ; and given 
any degree of error there will sometime be an estimate (or 
would be, if the probation were persisted in) which will be 
absolutely the last to be infected with so much falsity. 
Gradual Induction is either Qualitative or Quantitative, and 
the latter either depends on measurements, or on statistics, or 

on countings. 

IV. 

Concerning the question of the nature of the logical 
validity possessed by Deduction, Induction, and Retrod uction, 
which is still an arena of controversy, I shall confine myself to 
stating the opinions which I am prepared to defend by posi- 
tive proofs. The validity of Deduction was correctly, if not 
very clearly, analysed by Kant. This kind of reasoning deals 
exclusively with Pure Ideas attaching primarily to Symbols 
and derivatively to other Signs of our own creation ; and the 
fact that man has a power of Explicating his own meaning 
renders Deduction valid. Induction is a kind of reasoning 
that may lead us into error ; but that it follows a method which, 
sufficiently persisted in, will be Inductively Certain (the sort 
of certainty we have that a perfect coin, pitched up often 
enough, will sometime turn up heads) to diminish the error 
below any predesignate degree, is assured by man's power of 
perceiving Inductive Certainty. In all this I am inviting the 
reader to peep through the big end of the telescope ; there is 
a wealth of pertinent detail that must here be passed over. 

Finally comes the bottom question of logical Critic, What 
sort of validity can be attributed to the First Stage of inquiry ? 
Observe that neither Deduction nor Induction contributes the 
smallest positive item to the final conclusion of the inquiry. 
They render the indefinite definite ; Deduction Explicates ; 
Induction evaluates : that is all. Over the chasm that yawns 
between the ultimate goal of science and such ideas of Man's 
environment as, coming over him during his primeval wander- 
ings in the forest, while yet his very notion of error was of the 
vaguest, he managed to communicate to some fellow, we are 



104 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

building a cantilever bridge of induction, held together by 
scientific struts and ties. Yet every plank of its advance is 
first laid by Retroduction alone, that is to say, by the spon- 
taneous conjectures of instinctive reason ; and neither Deduc- 
tion nor Induction contributes a single new concept to the 
structure. Nor is this less true or less important for those 
inquiries that self-interest prompts. 

The first answer we naturally give to this question is that 
we cannot help accepting the conjecture at such a valuation 
as that at which we do accept it ; whether as a simple interro- 
gation, or as more or less Plausible, or, occasionally, as an 
irresistible belief. But far from constituting, by itself, a 
logical justification such as it becomes a rational being to put 
forth, this pleading, that we cannot help yielding to the sug- 
gestion, amounts to nothing more than a confession of having 
failed to train ourselves to control our thoughts. It is more 
to the purpose, however, to urge that the strength of the impulse 
is a symptom of its being instinctive. Animals of all races 
rise far above the general level of their intelligence in those 
performances that are their proper function, such as flying and 
nest-building for ordinary birds ; and what is man's proper 
function if it be not to embody general ideas in art-creations, 
in utilities, and above all in theoretical cognition ? To give 
the lie to his own consciousness of divining the reasons of 
phenomena would be as silly in a man as it would be in a 
fledgling bird to refuse to trust to its wings and leave the 
nest, because the poor little thing had read Babinet, and 
judged aerostation to be impossible on hydrodynamical grounds. 
Yes ; it must be confessed that if we knew that the impulse to 
prefer one hypothesis to another really were analogous to the 
instincts of birds and wasps, it would be foolish not to give it 
play, within the bounds of reason ; especially since we must 
entertain some hypothesis, or else forego all further knowledge 
than that which we have already gained by that very means. 
But is it a fact that man possesses this magical faculty ? Not, 
I reply, to the extent of guessing right the first time, nor 



THE REALITY OF GOD 105 

perhaps the second; but that the well-prepared mind has 
wonderfully soon guessed each secret of nature, is historical 
truth. All the theories of science have been so obtained. But 
may they not have come fortuitously, or by some such modi- 
fication of chance as the Darwinian supposes ? I answer that 
three or four independent methods of computation show that 
it would be ridiculous to suppose our science to have so come 
to pass. Nevertheless, suppose that it can be so " explained," 
just as that any purposed act of mine is supposed by material- 
istic necessitarians to have come about. Still, what of it ? 
Does that materialistic explanation, supposing it granted, show 
that reason has nothing to do with my actions ? Even the 
parallelists will admit that the one explanation leaves the same 
need of the other that there was before it was given ; and this 
is certainly sound logic. There is a reason, an interpretation, 
a logic, in the course of scientific advance, and this indis- 
putably proves to him who has perceptions of rational or 
significant relations, that man's mind must have been attuned 
to the truth of things in order to discover what he has dis- 
covered. It is the very bed-rock of logical truth. 

Modern science has been builded after the model of 
Galileo, who founded it on il lume naturale. That truly 
inspired prophet had said that, of two hypotheses, the simpler 
is to be preferred ; but I was formerly one of those who, in 
our dull self-conceit fancying ourselves more sly than he, 
twisted the maxim to mean the logically simpler, the one that 
adds the least to what has been observed, in spite of three 
obvious objections: first, that so there was no support for 
any hypothesis ; secondly, that by the same token we ought 
to content ourselves with simply formulating the special 
observations actually made ; and thirdly, that every advance 
of science that further opens the truth to our view discloses a 
world of unexpected complications. It was not until long 
experience forced me to realise that subsequent discoveries 
were every time showing I had been wrong, while those who 
understood the maxim as Galileo had done, early unlocked the 



106 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

secret, that the scales fell from my eyes and my mind awoke 
to the broad and flaming daylight that it is the simpler 
Hypothesis in the sense of the more facile and natural, 
the one that instinct suggests, that must be preferred ; for 
the reason that unless man have a natural bent in accordance 
with nature's, he has no chance of understanding nature at all. 
Many tests of this principal and positive fact, relating as well 
to my own studies as to the researches of others, have con- 
firmed me in this opinion ; and when I shall come to set them 
forth in a book, their array will convince everybody. Oh no ! 
I am forgetting that armour, impenetrable by accurate thought, 
in which the rank and file of minds are clad ! They may, for 
example, get the notion that my proposition involves a denial 
of the rigidity of the laws of association : it would be quite on a 
par with much that is current. I do not mean that logical 
simplicity is a consideration of no value at all, but only that 
its value is badly secondary to that of simplicity in the other 
sense. 

If, however, the maxim is correct in Galileo's sense, whence 
it follows that man has, in some degree, a divinitory power, 
primary or derived, like that of a wasp or a bird, then instances 
swarm to show that a certain altogether peculiar confidence in 
a hypothesis, not to be confounded with rash cocksureness, 
has a very appreciable value as a sign of the truth of the 
hypothesis. I regret I cannot give an account of certain 
interesting and almost convincing cases. The N.A. excites 
this peculiar confidence in the very highest degree. 

V. 

We have now to apply these principles to the evaluation 
of the N.A. Had I space I would put this into the shape of 
imagining how it is likely to be esteemed by three types of 
men : the first of small instruction with corresponding natural 
breadth, intimately acquainted with the N.A., but to whom 
logic is all Greek; the second, inflated with current notions 
of logic, but prodigiously informed about the N.A. ; the 



THE REALITY OF GOD 107 

third, a trained man of science who, in the modern spirit, 
has added to his specialty an exact theoretical and practical 
study of reasoning and the elements of thought, so that 
psychologists account him a sort of psychologist, and mathe- 
maticians a sort of mathematician. 

I should, then, show how the first would have learned that 
nothing has any kind of value in itself whether esthetic, moral, 
or scientific but only in its place in the whole production 
to which it appertains ; and that an individual soul with 
its petty agitations and calamities is a zero except as filling 
its infinitesimal place, and accepting his little futility as his 
entire treasure. He will see that though his God would 
not really (in a certain sense) adapt means to ends, it is 
nevertheless quite true that there are relations among pheno- 
mena which finite intelligence must interpret, and truly 
interpret, as such adaptations ; and he will macarise himself 
for his own bitterest griefs, and bless God for the law of growth 
with all the fighting it imposes upon him Evil, i.e. what it is 
man's duty to fight, being one of the major perfections of 
the Universe. In that fight he will endeavour to perform just 
the duty laid upon him and no more. Though his desperate 
struggles should issue in the horrors of his rout, and he should 
see the innocents who are dearest to his heart exposed to 
torments, frenzy and despair, destined to be smirched with 
filth, and stunted in their intelligence, still he may hope that 
it be best for them, and will tell himself that in any case the 
secret design of God will be perfected through their agency; and 
even while still hot from the battle, will submit with adoration 
to His Holy will. He will not worry because the Universes 
were not constructed to suit the scheme of some silly scold. 

The context of this I must leave the reader to imagine. 
I will only add that the third man, considering the complex 
process of self-control, will see that the hypothesis, irresistible 
though it be to first intention, yet needs Probation; and 
that though an infinite being is not tied down to any consist- 
ency, yet man, like any other animal, is gifted with power of 



108 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

understanding sufficient for the conduct of life. This brings 
him, for testing the hypothesis, to taking his stand upon 
Pragmaticism, which implies faith in common sense and in 
instinct, though only as they issue from the cupel-furnace of 
measured criticism. In short, he will say that the N.A. is the 
First Stage of a scientific inquiry, resulting in a hypothesis of 
the very highest Plausibility, whose ultimate test must lie in 
its value in the self-controlled growth of man's conduct of life. 

Since I have employed the word Pragmaticism, and 
shall have occasion to use it once more, it may perhaps be 
well to explain it. About forty years ago, my studies of 
Berkeley, Kant, and others led me, after convincing myself 
that all thinking is performed in Signs, and that meditation 
takes the form of a dialogue, so that it is proper to speak of 
the " meaning " of a concept, to conclude that to acquire full 
mastery of that meaning it is requisite, in the first place, to 
learn to recognise the concept under every disguise, through 
extensive familiarity with instances of it. But this, after all, 
does not imply any true understanding of it ; so that it is 
further requisite that we should make an abstract logical 
analysis of it into its ultimate elements, or as complete an 
analysis as we can compass. But, even so, we may still be 
without any living comprehension of it ; and the only way to 
complete our knowledge of its nature is to discover and recog- 
nise just what general habits of conduct a belief in the truth 
of the concept (of any conceivable subject, and under any con- 
ceivable circumstances) would reasonably develop ; that is to 
say, what habits would ultimately result from a sufficient con- 
sideration of such truth. It is necessary to understand the 
word " conduct," here, in the broadest sense. If, for example, 
the predication of a given concept were to lead to our admit- 
ting that a given form of reasoning concerning the subject of 
which it was affirmed was valid, when it would not otherwise 
be valid, the recognition of that effect in our reasoning would 
decidedly be a habit of conduct. 



THE REALITY OF GOD 109 

In 1871, in a Metaphysical Club in Cambridge, Mass., I 
used to preach this principle as a sort of logical gospel, repre- 
senting the unformulated method followed by Berkeley, and 
in conversation about it I called it "Pragmatism." In 
December 1877 and January 1878 I set forth the doctrine 
in the Popular Science Monthly, and the two parts of my 
essay were printed in French in the Revue Philosopkique, 
volumes vi. and vii. Of course, the doctrine attracted no partic- 
ular attention, for, as I had remarked in my opening sentence, 
very few people care for logic. But in 1897 Professor James 
remodelled the matter, and transmogrified it into a doctrine 
of philosophy, some parts of which I highly approved, while 
other and more prominent parts I regarded, and still regard, as 
opposed to sound logic. About the time Professor Papirie 
discovered, to the delight of the Pragmatist school, that this 
doctrine was incapable of definition, which would certainly 
seem to distinguish it from every other doctrine in whatever 
branch of science, I was coming to the conclusion that my 
poor little maxim should be called by another name ; and 
accordingly, in April 1905, 1 renamed it Pragmaticism. I had 
never before dignified it by any name in print, except that, at 
Professor Baldwin's request, I wrote a definition of it for his 
Dictionary of Psychology and Philosophy. I did not insert the 
word in the Century Dictionary, though I had charge of the 
philosophical definitions of that work ; for I have a perhaps 
exaggerated dislike of reclame. 

It is that course of meditation upon the three Universes 
which gives birth to the hypothesis and ultimately to the 
belief that they, or at any rate two of the three, have a 
Creator independent of them, that I have throughout this 
article called the N.A., because I think the theologians ought 
to have recognised it as a line of thought reasonably productive 
of belief. This is the " humble " argument, the innermost of 
the nest. In the mind of a metaphysician it will have a 
metaphysical tinge ; but that seems to me rather to detract 
from its force than to add anything to it. It is just as good 



110 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

an argument, if not better, in the form it takes in the mind of 
the clodhopper. 

The theologians could not have presented the N.A. ; because 
that is a living course of thought of very various forms. But 
they might and ought to have described it, and should have de- 
fended it, too, as far as they could, without going into original 
logical researches, which could not be justly expected of them. 
They are accustomed to make use of the principle that that which 
convinces a normal man must be presumed to be sound reason- 
ing; and therefore they ought to say whatever can truly be 
advanced to show that the N.A., if sufficiently developed, will 
convince any normal man. Unfortunately, it happens that 
there is very little established fact to show that this is the 
case. I have not pretended to have any other ground for my 
belief that it is so than my assumption, which each one of us 
makes, that my own intellectual disposition is normal. I am 
forced to confess that no pessimist will agree with me. 
I do not admit that pessimists are, at the same time, 
thoroughly sane, and in addition are endowed in normal 
measure with intellectual vigour ; and my reasons for thinking 
so are two. The first is, that the difference between a pessi- 
mistic and an optimistic mind is of such controlling importance 
in regard to every intellectual function, and especially for the 
conduct of life, that it is out of the question to admit that both 
are normal, and the great majority of mankind are naturally 
optimistic. Now, the majority of every race depart but little 
from the norm of that race. In order to present my other 
reason, I am obliged to recognise three types of pessimists. 
The first type is often found in exquisite and noble natures of 
great force of original intellect whose own lives are dread- 
ful histories of torment due to some physical malady. 
Leopardi is a famous example. We cannot but believe, 
against their earnest protests, that if such men had had 
ordinary health, life would have worn for them the same 
colour as for the rest of us. Meantime, one meets too few 
pessimists of this type to affect the present question. 



THE REALITY OF GOD 111 

The second is the misanthropical type, the type that makes 
itself heard. It suffices to call to mind the conduct of the 
famous pessimists of this kind, Diogenes the Cynic, Schopen- 
hauer, Carlyle, and their kin with Shakespeare's Timon Of 
Athens, to recognise them as diseased minds. The third is 
the philanthropical type, people whose lively sympathies, easily 
excited, become roused to anger at what they consider the 
stupid injustices of life. Being easily interested in everything, 
without being overloaded with exact thought of any kind, they 
are excellent raw material for litterateurs: witness Voltaire. 
No individual remotely approaching the calibre of a Leibniz is 
to be found among them. 

The third argument, enclosing and defending the other 
two, consists in the development of those principles of logic 
according to which the humble argument is the first stage of 
a scientific inquiry into the origin of the three Universes, but 
of an inquiry which produces, not merely scientific belief, 
which is always provisional, but also a living, practical belief, 
logically justified in crossing the Rubicon with all the freight- 
age of eternity. The presentation of this argument would 
require the establishment of several principles of logic that 
the logicians have hardly dreamed of, and particularly a strict 
proof of the correctness of the maxim of Pragmaticism. My 
original essay, having been written for a popular monthly, 
assumes, for no better reason than that real inquiry cannot 
begin until a state of real doubt arises and ends as soon as 
Belief is attained, that " a settlement of Belief," or, in other 
words, a state of satisfaction, is all that Truth, or the aim of 
inquiry, consists in. The reason I gave for this was so flimsy, 
while the inference was so nearly the gist of Pragmaticism, 
that I must confess the argument of that essay might with 
some justice be said to beg the question. The first part of 
the essay, however, is occupied with showing that, if Truth 
consists in satisfaction, it cannot be any actual satisfaction, 
but must be the satisfaction which would ultimately be found 
if the inquiry were pushed to its ultimate and indefeasible 



112 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

issue. This, I beg to point out, is a very different position 
from that of Mr Schiller and the pragmatists of to-day. 
I trust I shall be believed when I say that it is only a 
desire to avoid being misunderstood in consequence of my 
relations with pragmatism, and by no means as arrogating any 
superior immunity from error which I have too good reason 
to know that I do not enjoy, that leads me to express my 
personal sentiments about their tenets. Their avowedly un- 
defmable position, if it be not capable of logical characterisation, 
seems to me to be characterised by an angry hatred of strict 
logic, and even some disposition to rate any exact thought 
which interferes with their doctrines as all humbug. At the 
same time, it seems to me clear that their approximate accept- 
ance of the Pragmaticist principle, and even that very casting 
aside of difficult distinctions (although I cannot approve of it), 
has helped them to a mightily clear discernment of some 
fundamental truths that other philosophers have seen but 
through a mist, and most of them not at all. Among such 
truths all of them old, of course, yet acknowledged by 
few I reckon their denial of necessitarianism ; their rejection 
of any "consciousness" different from a visceral or other 
external sensation ; their acknowledgment that there are, 
in a Pragmatistical sense, Real habits (which Really would 
produce effects, under circumstances that may not happen to 
get actualised, and are thus Real generals) ; and their in- 
sistence upon interpreting all hypostatic abstractions in terms 
of what they would or might (not actually will) come to in 
the concrete. It seems to me a pity they should allow a 
philosophy so instinct with life to become infected with seeds 
of death in such notions as that of the unreality of all ideas of 
infinity and that of the mutability of truth, and in such con- 
fusions of thought as that of active willing (willing to control 
thought, to doubt, and to weigh reasons) with willing not to 
exert the will (willing to believe). 

C. S. PEIRCE. 

WESTFALL, PENNSYLVANIA. 



DETERMINISM AND MORALS. 
THE HON. BERTRAND RUSSELL. 

THE importance to ethics of the free-will question is a subject 
upon which there has existed almost as much diversity of 
opinion as on the free-will question itself. It has been urged 
by advocates of free-will that its denial involves the denial of 
merit and demerit, and that, with the denial of these, ethics 
collapses. It has been urged on the other side that, unless we 
can foresee, at least partially, the consequences of our actions, 
it is impossible to know what course we ought to take under 
any given circumstances ; and that if other people's actions 
cannot be in any degree predicted, the foresight required for 
rational action becomes impossible. I do not propose, in the 
following discussion, to go into the free-will controversy itself. 
The grounds in favour of determinism appear to me over- 
whelming, and I shall content myself with a brief indication of 
these grounds. The question I am concerned with is not the 
free-will question itself, but the question how, if at all, morals 
are affected by assuming determinism. 

In considering this question, as in most of the other 
problems of ethics, the moralist who has not had a philo- 
sophical training appears to me to go astray, and become 
involved in needless complications, through supposing that 
right and wrong in conduct are the ultimate conceptions of 
ethics, rather than good and bad, in the effects of conduct and 
in other things. The words good and bad are used both for 

the sort of conduct which is right or wrong, and for the sort 
VOL. VIL No. 1. us 8 



114 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of effects to be expected from right and wrong conduct, re- 
spectively. We speak of a good picture, a good dinner, and so 
on, as well as of a good action. But there is a great difference 
between these two meanings of good. Roughly speaking, a 
good action is one of which the probable effects are good in the 
other sense. It is confusing to have two meanings for one 
word, and I shall therefore speak of a right action rather than 
a good action. In order to decide whether an action is right, 
it is necessary to consider its probable effects. If the probable 
effects are, on the whole, better than those of any other action 
which is possible under the circumstances, then the action is 
right. The things that are good are things which, on their 
own account, and apart from any consideration of their effects, 
we ought to wish to see in existence : they are such things as, 
we may suppose, might make the world appear to the Creator 
worth creating. I do not wish to deny that right conduct is 
among the things that are good on their own account ; but if 
it is so, it depends for its intrinsic goodness upon the goodness 
of those other things which it aims at producing, such as love 
or happiness. Thus the Tightness of conduct is not the funda- 
mental conception upon which ethics is built up. This 
fundamental conception is intrinsic goodness or badness, 
desirability or undesirability. 

In order to be able to pass quickly to the consideration 
of our main theme, I shall assume the following definitions. 
The objectively right action, in any circumstances, is that 
action which, of all that are possible, gives us, when account is 
taken of all available data, the greatest expectation of probable 
good effects, or the least expectation of probable bad effects. 
The subjectively right or moral action is that one which will be 
judged by the agent to be objectively right if he devotes to 
the question an appropriate amount of candid thought, or, in 
the case of actions that ought to be impulsive, a small amount. 
The appropriate amount of thought depends upon the impor- 
tance of the action and the difficulty of the decision. An act 
is neither moral nor immoral when it is unimportant, and a 



DETERMINISM AND MORALS 115 

small amount of reflection would not suffice to show whether 
it was right or wrong. After these preliminaries, we can pass 
to the consideration of our main topic. 

The principle of causality that every event is determined 
by previous events, and can (theoretically) be predicted when 
enough previous events are known appears to apply just as 
much to human actions as to other events. It cannot be 
said that its application to human actions, or to any other 
phenomena, is wholly beyond doubt ; but a doubt extending 
to the principle of causality must be so fundamental as to 
involve all science, all everyday knowledge, and everything, 
or almost everything, that we believe about the actual world. 
If causality is doubted, morals collapse, since a right action 
is one of which the probable effects are the best possible, so 
that estimates of right and wrong necessarily presuppose that 
our actions can have effects, and therefore that the law of 
causality holds. For the view that human actions alone are 
not the effects of causes, there appears to be no ground 
whatever except the sense of spontaneity. But the sense of 
spontaneity only affirms that we can do as we choose, and 
choose as we please, which no determinist denies ; it cannot 
affirm that our choice is independent of all motives, 1 and 
indeed introspection tends rather to show the opposite. It 
is said by the advocates of free-will 2 that determinism 
destroys morals, since it shows that all our actions are in- 
evitable, and that therefore they deserve neither praise nor 
blame. Let us consider how far, if at all, this is the case. 

The part of ethics which is concerned, not with conduct, 
but with the meaning of good and bad, and the things that are 
intrinsically good and bad, is plainly quite independent of free- 
will. Causality belongs to the description of the existing 
world, and no inference can be drawn from what exists to 

1 A motive means merely a cause of volition. 

2 I use free-will to mean the doctrine that not all volitions are determined 
by causes, which is the denial of determinism. Free-will is often used in senses 
compatible with determinism, but I am not concerned to affirm or deny it in 
such senses. 



116 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

what is good. Whether, then, causality holds always, some- 
times or never, is a question wholly irrelevant in the considera- 
tion of intrinsic goods and evils. But when we come to 
conduct and the notion of ought, we cannot be sure that 
determinism makes no difference. For the materially right 
action may be defined as that one which, of all that are 
possible under the circumstances, will probably on the whole 
have the best consequences. The action which is materially 
right must therefore be in some sense possible. But if deter- 
minism is true, there is a sense in which no action is possible 
except the one actually performed. Hence, if the two senses of 
possibility are the same, the action actually performed is always 
materially right ; for it is the only possible action, and therefore 
there is no other possible action which would have had better 
results. There is here, I think, a real difficulty. But let us 
consider the various kinds of possibility which may be meant. 

In order that an act may be a possible act, it must be 
physically possible to perform, it must be possible to think of, 
and it must be possible to choose if we think of it. Physical 
possibility, to begin with, is obviously necessary. There are 
circumstances under which I might do a great deal of good by 
running from Oxford to London in five minutes. But I 
should not be called unwise, or guilty of an objectively wrong 
act, for omitting to do so. We may define an act as physically 
possible when it will occur if I will it. Acts for which this 
condition fails are not to be taken account of in estimating 
Tightness or wrongness. 

To judge whether an act is possible to think of is more diffi- 
cult, but we certainly take account of it in judging what a man 
ought to do. There is no physical impossibility about employing 
one's spare moments in writing lyric poems better than any yet 
written, and this would certainly be a more useful employment 
than most people find for their spare moments. But we do 
not blame people for not writing lyric poems unless, like Fitz- 
gerald, they are people that we feel could have written them. 
And not only we do not blame them, but we feel that their 



DETERMINISM AND MORALS 117 

action may be objectively as well as subjectively right if it is 
the wisest that they could have thought of. But what they 
could have thought of is not the same as what they did think 
of. Suppose a man in a fire or a shipwreck becomes so panic- 
stricken that he never for a moment thinks of the help that is 
due to other people, we do not on that account hold that he 
does right in only thinking of himself. Hence in some sense 
(though it is not quite clear what this sense is) some of the 
courses of action which a man does not think of are regarded 
as possible for him to think of, though others are admittedly 
impossible. 

There is thus a sense in which it must be possible to think 
of an action, if we are to hold that it is objectively wrong not 
to perform the action. There is also, if determinism is true, 
a sense in which it is not possible to think of any action except 
those which we do think of. But it is questionable whether 
these two senses of possibility are the same. A man who 
finds that his house is on fire may run out of it in a panic 
without thinking of warning the other inmates ; but we feel, 
rightly or wrongly, that it was possible for him to think of 
warning them in a sense in which it was not possible for a 
prosaic person to think of a lyric poem. It may be that we 
are wrong in feeling this difference, and that what really 
distinguishes the two cases is dependence upon past decisions. 
That is to say, we may recognise that no different choice 
among alternatives thought of at any time would have turned 
an ordinary man into a good lyric poet ; but that most men, 
by suitably choosing among alternatives actually thought of, 
can acquire the sort of character which will lead them to 
remember their neighbours in a fire. And if a man engages 
in some useful occupation of which a natural effect is to 
destroy his nerve, we may conceivably hold that this excuses 
his panic in an emergency. In such a point, it would seem 
that our judgment may really be dependent on the view we 
take as to the existence of free-will ; for the believer in free- 
will cannot allow any such excuse. 



118 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

If we try to state the difference we feel between the case 
of the lyric poems and the case of the fire, it seems to come to 
this: that we do not hold an act materially wrong when it 
would have required what we recognise as a special aptitude in 
order to think of a better act, and when we believe that the 
agent did not possess this aptitude. But this distinction seems 
to imply that there is not such a thing as a special aptitude for 
this or that virtue; a view which cannot, I think, be maintained. 
An aptitude for generosity or for kindness may be as much a 
natural gift as an aptitude for poetry ; and an aptitude for 
poetry may be as much improved by practice as an aptitude 
for kindness or generosity. Thus it would seem that there is 
no sense in which it is possible to think of some actions which 
in fact we do not think of, but impossible to think of others, 
except the sense that the ones we regard as possible would 
have been thought of if a different choice among alternatives 
actually thought of had been made on some previous occasion. 

We shall then modify our previous definition of the 
objectively right action by saying that it is the probably most 
beneficial among those that occur to the agent at the moment 
of choice. But we shall hold that, in certain cases, the fact 
that a more beneficial alternative does not occur to him is 
evidence of a wrong choice on some previous occasion. But 
since occasions of choice do often arise, and since there 
certainly is a sense in which it is possible to choose any one of 
a number of different actions which we think of, we can still 
distinguish some actions as right and some as wrong. 

Our previous definitions of objectively right actions and 
of moral actions still hold, with the modification that, among 
physically possible actions, only those which we actually think 
of are to be regarded as possible. When several alternative 
actions present themselves, it is certain that we can both do 
which we choose, and choose which we will. In this sense all 
the alternatives are possible. What determinism maintains is, 
that our will to choose this or that alternative is the effect of 
antecedents; but this does not prevent our will from being 



DETERMINISM AND MORALS 119 

itself a cause of other effects. And the sense in which other 
decisions are possible seems sufficient to distinguish some 
actions as right and some as wrong, some as moral and some 
as immoral. 

Connected with this is another sense in which, when we 
deliberate, either decision is possible. The fact that we judge 
one course objectively right may be the cause of our choosing 
this course : thus, before we have decided as to which course 
we think right, either is possible in the sense that either will 
result from our decision as to which we think right. This 
sense of possibility is important to the moralist, and illustrates 
the fact that determinism does not make moral deliberation 
futile. 

Determinism does not, therefore, destroy the distinction 
of right and wrong; and we saw before that it does not 
destroy the distinction of good and bad : we shall still be 
able to regard some people as better than others, and some 
actions as more right than others. But it is said that praise, 
and blame, and responsibility are destroyed by determinism. 
When a madman commits what in a sane man we should 
call a crime, we do not blame him, partly because he probably 
cannot judge rightly as to consequences, but partly also 
because we feel that he could not have done otherwise : if 
all men are really in the position of the madman, it would 
seem that all ought to escape blame. But 1 think the 
question of choice really decides as to praise and blame. The 
madman, we believe (excluding the case of wrong judgment 
as to consequences), did not choose between different courses, 
but was impelled by a blind impulse. The sane man who 
(say) commits a murder has, on the contrary, either at the 
time of the murder or at some earlier time, chosen the worst 
of two or more alternatives that occurred to him ; and it is 
for this we blame him. It is true that the two cases merge 
into each other, and the madman may be blamed if he has 
become mad in consequence of vicious self-indulgence. But 
it is right that the two cases should not be too sharply 



120 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

distinguished, for we know how hard it often is in practice to 
decide whether people are what is called " responsible for their 
actions." It is sufficient that there is a distinction, and that 
it can be applied easily in most cases, though there are marginal 
cases which present difficulties. We apply praise or blame, 
then, and we attribute responsibility, where a man, having to 
exercise choice, has chosen wrongly ; and this sense of praise 
or blame is not destroyed by determinism. 

Determinism, then, does not in any way interfere with 
morals. It is worth noticing that free-will, on the contrary, 
would interfere most seriously, if anybody really believed in it. 
People never do, as a matter of fact, believe that anyone else's 
actions are not determined by motives, however much they 
may think themselves free. Bradshaw consists entirely of pre- 
dictions as to the actions of engine-drivers ; but no one doubts 
Bradshaw on the ground that the volitions of engine-drivers 
are not governed by motives. If we really believed that other 
people's actions did not have causes, we could never try to 
influence other people's actions; for such influence can only 
result if we know, more or less, what causes will produce the 
actions we desire. If we could never try to influence other 
people's actions, no man could try to get elected to Parliament, 
or ask a woman to marry him: argument, exhortation, and 
command would become mere idle breath. Thus almost all 
the actions with which morality is concerned would become 
irrational, rational action would be wholly precluded from 
trying to influence people's volitions, and right and wrong 
would be interfered with in a way in which determinism 
certainly does not interfere with them. Most morality ab- 
solutely depends upon the assumption that volitions have 
causes, and nothing in morals is destroyed by this assumption. 

Most people, it is true, do not hold the free-will doctrine 
in so extreme a form as that against which we have been 
arguing. They would hold that most of a man's actions have 
causes, but that some few, say one per cent., are uncaused 
spontaneous assertions of will. If this view is taken, unless 



DETERMINISM AND MORALS 121 

we can mark off the one per cent, of volitions which are 
uncaused, every inference as to human actions is infected with 
what we may call one per cent, of doubt. This, it must be 
admitted, would not matter much in practice, because, on 
other grounds, there will usually be at least one per cent, of 
doubt in predictions as to human actions. But from the 
standpoint of theory there is a wide difference: the sort of 
doubt that must be admitted in any case is a sort which is 
capable of indefinite diminution, while the sort derived from 
the possible intervention of free-will is absolute and ultimate. 
In so far, therefore, as the possibility of uncaused volitions 
comes in, all the consequences above pointed out follow ; and 
in so far as it does not come in, determinism holds. Thus one 
per cent, of free-will has one per cent, of the objectionableness 
of absolute free-will, and has also only one per cent, of the 
ethical consequences. 

In fact, however, no one really holds that right acts are 
uncaused. It would be a monstrous paradox to say that a 
man's decision ought not to be influenced by his belief as to 
what is his duty ; yet, if he allows himself to decide on an act 
because he believes it to be his duty, his decision has a motive, 
i.e. a cause, and is not free in the only sense in which the 
determinist must deny freedom. It would seem, therefore, 
that the objections to determinism are mainly attributable to 
misunderstanding of its purport. Hence, finally, it is not 
determinism but free-will that has subversive consequences. 
There is therefore no reason to regret that the grounds in 
favour of determinism are overwhelmingly strong. 

B. RUSSELL. 

OXFORD. 



PAIN. 
Miss CAROLINE STEPHEN. 

THE rapid diffusion in recent years of a familiar and detailed 
acquaintance with pain and evil in all their forms has been 
accompanied by a growth of sensitiveness to suffering, whether 
our own or other people's, almost amounting to panic, and 
has produced two opposite reactions, both of which appear to 
those belonging to an older and sterner generation to be full 
of danger. They spring from one root : the assumption that 
pain ought not to exist that it is of necessity an evil. 

The teaching of which " Christian Science " is the most 
familiar type, taking its stand on belief in God as a Being at 
once all-loving and all-powerful, declares that pain cannot 
really exist. Modern rebels, on the other hand, declare that 
since the existence of pain is undeniable, the God of Christian 
faith cannot exist. Both hold that there is no room in one 
universe for pain and for a God who is Love. Both apparently 
feel themselves competent to sit in judgment on the whole 
course of Nature and to condemn it the one as a vast lie, the 
other as a huge system of cruelty. 

To the ordinary mind both these attitudes appear so pre- 
sumptuous as almost to refute themselves. They both imply 
a claim to have mastered the problem of evil and to have 
ascertained its origin with such completeness as to warrant the 
assertion of its needlessness. 

I need hardly say that nothing is further from my intention 
than to offer any alternative solution of that awful problem. 

122 



PAIN 123 

My object is only to consider what, for ordinary people, is the 
right way of meeting suffering. There are multitudes who are 
staggered and perplexed by the daily tragedies and the heart- 
sickening conditions of life surrounding us on all sides, who 
yet desire to find and to keep hold of a courageous and dutiful 
way of meeting the facts of experience ; who can find no satis- 
faction either in denying the reality of pain, or in blaspheming 
against the Author of Life and Order. These ask not what 
God ought to allow, but how we ought to meet that which 
is allowed ; not whether the infliction of pain can be morally 
justifiable, but whether the endurance of it can be made 
morally profitable. They ask not for consolation but for 
strength. Possibly there may be no consolation to be had, 
but there is always the need to endure. If we can but find 
firm ground on which to stand upright and to meet our lot 
without loss of self-respect or lowering of aim, it will be time 
enough after the battle has been fought and won to ask how 
the conflict arose. Meanwhile, it is in fighting the battle that 
we shall answer such questions as it behoves us to ask. 

This is not to say that if Philosophy could solve for us the 
ever-recurring problem of how to reconcile in thought the 
existence of evil with that of a supreme and everlasting Order 
nay, with the existence of any order at all it would not 
make our task infinitely easier. Possibly, indeed, it might 
make all life " a task so light, that Virtue never could grow 
strong." But Philosophy has not yet solved this problem ; 
and we cannot wait for such a solution before living our lives, 
and encountering the inevitable trials of our mortal state. 
Are we at liberty can it be right, wise, or helpful either to 
kick against the pricks or to deny their power to wound ? 

The whole question for practical purposes turns on that 
of the moral and spiritual effects of pain when rightly met. 
Before asking what results have in fact been known to flow 
from it, and what is meant by Tightness of attitude towards it, 
there are two points which need to be made clear. 

In the first place, we are met at the very outset of such an 



124 THE H1JBBERT JOURNAL 

inquiry as this by the question of our own competence to deal 
with it. Few of us can ever be sure that we have had experi- 
ence enough of the power of pain to warrant us in generalising 
about it. In reply especially to any hopeful view of the matter, 
those who are unconvinced can always reply : " That is all very 
well, but you would not say so if you knew as much about 
suffering as I do " ; and there is no common measure for 
such experience. Yet though no one dare boast that he has 
exhausted the possibilities of suffering in his own personal 
experience, and though some degree of exemption from it (for 
the moment, at any rate) may be implied in the very power to 
speculate on its meaning and tendencies, yet no one can live 
long in this world without tasting enough of it to afford some 
test of the bearing, and even of the cogency, of the various 
theories in the strength of which it may be encountered, or 
under cover of which it may be flinched from. For it must be 
remembered that it is not the degree, but the fact of suffering 
which raises the difficulty as to its compatibility with Divine 
Love. 

From a merely logical point of view, one pang suffered by 
the humblest creature is as clearly if not as strikingly incom- 
patible with the idea of omnipotent benevolence as the utmost 
intensity of accumulated torture ; and in like manner the 
experience of blessing springing out of the familiar sorrows of 
ordinary people loses nothing of its weight because there are 
depths of suffering which these have not yet fathomed. It is 
the common lot with which we are chiefly concerned when 
our object is not the solution of a theoretical puzzle, but the 
justification of a definite mental attitude. Whether our own 
experience be in any respect exceptional or not, we can all 
recognise the place which suffering holds in the lives of others, 
and the degree in which our estimate of their character is 
affected by their manner of encountering it. We have all 
suffered enough to know how much it costs and how much 
it avails to meet trial in a brave spirit, as discipline, not as 
mere hindrance. We can in some degree guess what has gone 



PAIN 125 

to the making of such qualities as we see shining in the lives 
of the heroes and martyrs by whose deeds our lower levels of 
life are lighted up, and our deepest veneration called out. At 
any rate, whether competent or not to preach patience, we 
must all be ready to practise it ; and we have all both the right 
and the duty to consider in what light it should be regarded. 

The other point which must be emphasised as a preliminary 
is the distinction between pain and evil. To use the words 
indiscriminately is of course to beg the whole question at issue, 
which is precisely whether pain is or is not of necessity evil. 
All who have seriously considered the matter know how 
difficult it is to frame any definition of good and evil which 
shall not turn in some degree upon the tendency of actions to 
produce or to hinder happiness. But this is not to say that 
good has no other meaning than happiness, or evil than pain 
At every turn we have to recognise that the things are different, 
though mysteriously related. 

The question of the precise meaning of good and evil, of 
course, lies at the very root of the science of ethics, and I am 
not dreaming of grappling with it ; but it is clear that in their 
practical application to everyday life the words pain and evil 
express two very different thoughts ; and that while evil 
obviously cannot be innocent, pain often is so. Of course it 
will be replied that though the suffering of pain may be inno- 
cent, its infliction cannot be so. But this is just the question 
at issue. Does the infliction of pain always mean an actual 
injury done to the sufferer ? If not if, on the other hand, it 
means a moral and spiritual, or even a physical benefit, which 
the sufferer, having the choice, would gladly purchase at that 
cost then there can be no room for calling it evil, short of the 
assertion that the whole constitution of Nature ought to have 
been different, so as to allow of the same results being pro- 
duced by quite other means an assertion which, in the mouth 
of a mere human being, is as idle as it is rebellious. 

We shall, of course, all agree in considering the infliction 
of needless and unprofitable suffering as mere cruelty. But 



126 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

who shall dare to say under what fundamental necessity joy 
and sorrow, pain and pleasure, light and darkness are in this 
world as inseparably connected as are the concave and convex 
sides of the line of any curve ? The rashness with which it is 
often assumed that the omnipotence which we attribute to 
God means and that we are therefore justified in asserting 
that He could just as easily have created us and brought us 
to a state of moral perfection without suffering as with it, 
seems incredible when one reflects upon it. Yet this assump- 
tion is the very root of the difficulty. Our own utter inability 
to conceive of any such process or its result might at least 
keep us silent, if we cannot rise to the height of being ready 
to "rejoice in tribulation." 

But not to dwell further on the surprising liberty claimed 
by some to sit in judgment on that whole of which our very 
existence, let alone our moral sense, is but an infinitesimal 
fragment, let us consider what is involved for our daily life 
in the habit of allowing ourselves to regard all suffering 
as evil. 

It would seem to be too obvious a truism to be worth 
recalling (could we ever count upon truisms being kept in 
mind), that courage and patience depend for their very 
existence upon the need and the practice of endurance. It 
is perhaps more to the purpose to ask wherein lie the peculiar 
preciousness and beauty of these two qualities, and how the 
universal reverence for them is justified. The essence of both 
seems to consist in self-mastery ; and self-mastery appears to 
have an intrinsic Tightness and beauty in whatever form it 
may be manifested. The exercise of courage and patience 
involves, of course, the dominion of the spirit over the flesh, 
as we refuse to be deterred by the fear, or disturbed by the 
actual experience, of suffering. Deterred from what? Dis- 
turbed out of what? Does not our instinctive as well as 
reasoned admiration of courage recognise, whether consciously 
or not, the existence of an order, a plan, a design (call it duty 
or truth or beauty, or what you will) which is rightfully 



PAIN 127 

supreme, and the pursuance of which in the teeth of all 
hindrances constitutes our essential idea of virtue? And in 
like manner, does not our admiration of patience imply that 
equanimity is the ideal state of the human spirit ? 

So by the mere fact of our admiration and reverence for 
courage and patience in others we acknowledge that there is 
something better than mere freedom from pain, a better sway 
than that of the emotions. The homage we yield to the 
brave testifies to our sense of the value of the higher law in 
obedience to which they risk, or actually encounter, every 
kind of hardship or suffering. And when from admiration we 
rise to the practice of courage and patience, we do in very 
deed recognise and consent and say Amen to an Order, the 
Author of which is the Object of our inmost adoration. By 
such effectual consent and actual working out in deed of 
loyalty to the higher law we are, I believe, actually, though of 
course gradually, lifted above mere sensation or mere emotion 
raised to a higher plane. And the power to endure, like all 
our active powers, grows through exercise. 

If this be true and I believe that every one of us may 
prove its truth by actual personal experience, for it applies to 
the endurance of all pain, however slight or however intense, 
whether bodily or mental if this be true, we have the key to 
all the religious value for suffering which, though liable to 
such deplorable exaggerations and perversions, is yet so 
incalculable a force. If it be true, the modern revolt against 
all suffering is obviously suicidal. To extinguish all suffering, 
were that possible, would be to deprive the world of a leverage 
as all-pervading and effectual towards spiritual elevation and 
purification as is gravitation towards stability. 

It is not, of course, mere pain in itself that lifts or cleanses. 
It is pain rightly endured which acts as a spiritual lever. By 
pain rightly endured, I mean whatever is courageously and 
patiently borne, from whatever motive. I believe that the 
blindest, the most purely instinctive effort of mere " pluck " 
has a lifting power, and deserves our thankful admiration ; and 



128 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that every degree and every form of courage tends to raise the 
whole tone of life within the range of its influence, in pro- 
portion to the amount and the quality of the endurance 
exercised. 

The lifting power of endurance must probably be measured 
by its motive. The mere instinctive pluck which makes a 
schoolboy ashamed to wince or cry out may have no conscious 
motive at all, and may in fact be inspired by nothing more 
exalted than a general sense of esprit de corps and respect for 
tradition or public opinion. Yet even these things are higher 
than the dominion of mere sensation from which the boy is 
lifted away by them. And when once we arrive at the recog- 
nition of fortitude as an ideal, the conscious and resolute 
practice of it becomes a radiating power of incalculable value, 
the condition of the highest achievements which ennoble life. 
And again, there is a devotion in the strength of which 
courage is kindled into the joyous rapture of martyrdom. 

The higher degrees of courage perhaps all conscious 
devotion to it as an ideal imply of course the distinct recog- 
nition of that, be it what it may, for the sake of which we 
make the effort to rise above our pain. This object, recognised 
as something higher than ease, may be only an ideal. Some 
of us have seen, and wondered at, the sustaining power of that 
devotion to moral beauty and excellence (considered in a 
purely impersonal and abstract fashion as the one supremely 
desirable thing in a life unlighted by any revelation, and not 
necessarily regarded as extending beyond the grave) which in 
these troubled times ennobles and beautifies the lives of so 
many professed Agnostics. We have seen such lives gradually 
being lifted and purified by a power to which they give no 
name, and which seems not to inspire them with any tender or 
personal sense of devotion, but to which they render an austere 
and disinterested obedience. Such as these do not ask for 
consolation ; but neither do they struggle or cry out against 
the Order under which they live, and by which they have been 
wrought into so fine a temper of unworldly and unwavering 



PAIN 129 

integrity. Dumbly they do homage to the nature of the 
lessons taught by the discipline of life, though they may 
refrain from any spring of confidence towards the Teacher. 

Others there are for whom the Light of Revelation has 
shone in the darkness ; for whom the central source of all joy 
and strength is the life of the Crucified One Son of God and 
Son of Man by whom the very gates of heaven are opened to 
all believers. By these, however poor and feeble their own 
presentation of the Christian life, it is yet felt to be essentially 
and of necessity a life of victory. They have recognised once 
for all " the glory of the Cross," and all suffering is for them a 
means whereby the Father's name may be glorified. These 
" count it all joy " when they are called on to endure anything 
for His sake who loved us and gave Himself for us. They are 
ready with all their hearts to follow His call to rise higher 
through suffering, to take up their cross and follow the Captain 
of their salvation in the narrow upward path that leadeth unto 
life. To them the discipline of life is not merely a steady 
obedience to principle, but a blessed and tender instruction 
administered by the Father of their spirits, and prized above 
all mere happiness for its power to draw them nearer to Him- 
self. Such willing scholars in the school of Divine discipline 
have experiences more or less incommunicable, and not to be 
freely spoken of, in the light of which all pain is seen as con- 
taining the possibility of infinite blessing. 

For indeed the experience of the saints that it is good for 
them to have been in trouble is too familiar, too freely shared 
by those who, while never dreaming that they deserve the 
name of saints, are yet one with them in hope and faith, to 
need reassertion. It seems to be in the nature of happiness to 
lessen the forward impulse of the soul. " Stay, thou art fair," 
is the language of the happy, while those who endure cheer 
themselves with the thought, " This too will pass." And not 
only does happiness tend rather to rest than to effort, but in 
proportion as it satisfies it isolates ; whereas pain breaks down 

the barriers between spirit and spirit as nothing else can do. 
VOL. VII. No. 1. 9 



130 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

When we are in trouble we call upon God, and are brought 
into sympathy with men. Nothing unites hearts like a sorrow 
shared. 

But though the contrast between these familiar effects of 
joy and sorrow explains the sense of the value of pain which 
makes so many of us feel that our times of trouble are those 
which we could least afford to have blotted out from our lives, 
it does not follow that we feel suffering to be a better thing 
than enjoyment, or indeed to be in itself a good thing at all. 
Its whole value is in the effect of its right endurance in the 
lifting and purifying and stimulating action on the mind for 
which to the brave and patient it becomes a means. It is one 
of the instruments, but is very far from being the only instru- 
ment, in the hand of the Divine Husbandman, by which the 
fruit harvest is brought to maturity. Just because joy and 
sorrow are so powerful and so various in their power, we need 
both, and both need to be administered by more than human 
wisdom and knowledge. The office of brave and patient 
endurance being not only to lift us above the dominion of 
mere emotion, but to reveal to us the presence of the Teacher 
from whom this instruction comes, it is, I believe, our wisdom, 
while accepting willingly from His hand the needful severity 
of discipline, to abstain altogether from intermeddling in the 
administration of it by self-inflicted austerities. A dutiful 
spirit of confidence in Divine Wisdom is the mainspring of 
patience. I do not see how any such confidence can be rightly 
felt in one's own devices for subduing the flesh. 

Indeed, the apportionment of joy and sorrow, pain and 
pleasure, in any lot is a matter with which it does not seem 
conceivable that human wisdom should be competent to deal, 
even were the control of events in its hands. Joy and sorrow 
have their different and perhaps equally important parts to 
play in every life. While sorrow rightly met lifts and awakens 
and braces, joy rightly met rests and melts and ripens and 
perhaps raises also. Surely our wisdom is to open our hearts 
to both, and to take no thought for either, while cleaving to 



PAIN 181 

the guidance of that " stern daughter of the voice of God " 
which sets us free from the sway of our own desires. 

There is one plain duty for us all in the presence of an ever- 
growing acquaintance with the sorrows of the world the duty 
of self-control. Whatever our inmost thought with regard to 
the " Awful Power " by which the conditions of our life are 
ordained, whether we have even a grain of religious faith or must 
content ourselves with ethical principle, let us for any sake keep 
our balance, and not exaggerate, or indulge in rhetorical violence 
of denunciation against that which we can neither prevent nor 
fathom. It is certainly a duty to resist the temptation to an 
excessive value for ease which is at any rate akin to cowardice. 

I have not touched on the haunting horrors by which so 
many minds are overshadowed through dwelling on the worst 
evils of our overcrowded and in many respects corrupt city 
populations. It may be necessary that these things should be 
published, and it may be right that we should all in our 
measure feel their weight and urgency ; but of one thing I am 
sure that they cannot be truly measured from outside, still 
less from afar off. It is not those who are actually engaged 
in a hand-to-hand struggle with evil and degradation who take 
the gloomiest view of things. No others can give due weight 
to the elements of hope and of goodness which are mixed up 
everywhere with human vice and misery. This, I believe, is 
a part of the reward reserved for those who are honestly and 
heartily spending themselves in the service of the poor and 
wretched. They learn to hope against hope, and to see encour- 
agement everywhere. Their sympathy takes that deepest and 
best form which is not a mere reflection of pain, but a community 
of resolve. At any rate we shall do no good to ourselves or 
to others, and we may but too easily harden our hearts, by 
dwelling on pictures of misery and wretchedness without 
attempting any active endeavours to remove or lessen them. 
And if we are to give heart and hope to others, it must be by 
having our own heart and hope fixed on that which cannot fail. 

CAROLINE STEPHEN. 

CAMBRIDGE. 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY": 

A MISTAKEN NAME FOR A GENUINE THING. 
THE REV. T. K. CHEYNE, D.Litt, D.D., F.B.A. 

IN the present article the writer, with much reluctance, deserts 
the paths of simple inquiry and exposition. He will not, how- 
ever, try the reader's patience by condescending to the pro- 
cedure of ordinary controversialists. The attacks directed 
against him may often have been of a singular vehemence, 
but the only mode of self-defence that he will adopt is the 
removal of misapprehensions. Possibly the most violent of his 
assailants will pass over these pages, but there must still be 
some unspoiled Bible students who prize the jewel of an open 
mind, and who would say to the writer as the Roman Jews 
said to St Paul, "We desire to hear of thee what thou 
thinkest" What is it, then, that requires to be freed from 
misapprehension ? It is the North Arabian theory in its 
fullest form. It is here contended that Arabia, and more 
distinctly North Arabia, exercised no slight political and 
religious influence upon Israel, especially upon the region 
commonly known as Judah. And now, as always, the writer 
will combine this with a Babylonian theory, viz. that subse- 
quently to a great migration of Jerahmeelites and kindred 
Arabian peoples in a remote century (2500 B.C. ?), and 
again later, Babylonian culture exercised a wide influence 
on Syria and Palestine, and that South Arabia too, which 
was within the Babylonian sphere of influence, profoundly 



132 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY' 133 

affected North Arabia, and through North Arabia South 
Palestine. Both directly and indirectly, therefore, Palestine 
received a powerful and permanent stimulus from Babylonian 
culture. 

The portion of this complex theory which is most sharply 
attacked is one which claims to be based not only on in- 
scriptional evidence but also on passages of the Old Testament. 
The question whether it really has an Old Testament basis has 
not yet received half enough attention. This is unfortunate. 
South Arabian evidence may be only probable ; the Assyrian 
and the Hebrew may, in my opinion, be called decisive. Open- 
minded students may well be surprised that there should be 
scholars of the first and second rank who fail to see this, and 
who, strong in their presumed security, not only attack the 
North Arabian theory themselves, but warn their pupils or 
readers against it as a phantasy. 

It may perhaps be objected that the keenest adversaries are 
but a small number of persons, who, being at least on this 
question orthodox, may be expected to show the qualities 
characteristic of too many orthodoxies. In reply, lapsing into 
the first person, 1 admit that the most hostile writers may be 
comparatively few ; but when a member of the larger and less 
bitter class, in paraphrasing a simple narrative of the origin of a 
book, succeeds in transforming an act of generosity into an act 
of calculating prudence, 1 even a saint might feel justified in 
breaking silence. Is this, then, the right way for a young con- 
vert to the historical spirit (for such Professor Witton-Davies 
is) to treat a work of some originality ? I know that it is hard 
to enter into a new point of view, but those who cannot yet 
do this are scarcely trustworthy reviewers. It is disappointing, 
but I must confess that hitherto only " one man among a 
thousand have I found " (Eccles. vii. 28), and he is an American. 

1 I am sorry to have to point this out, for Professor Davies is zealous for 
the higher education in Wales. But truth requires it. See Review of Theology 
and Philosophy, edited by Professor Menzies, May 1908, p. 689; and cp. 
Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel, p. v, "To the Reader." 



134 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Professor Da vies says that he is also an ex- Baptist, and has 
"defended some points of Jerahmeelism." Apparently the 
two things go together. 

The views of this scholar (Professor Nathaniel Schmidt of 
Cornell University) are summed up in an article in this Journal 
(January 1908), entitled, "The * Jerahmeel' Theory and the 
Historic Importance of the Negeb." The opening words of 
this remind me too much of the misleading title of another 
American article, " Israel or Jerahmeel ? " l The truth surely is 
that there are other ethnic or regional names of North Arabia 
Mizrim, Asshur, Cush which would have as much right to 
form part of the title of the theory as Jerahmeel. I dissuade, 
however, from parading any of these names in a title. There 
are too many who are glad to scoff at unfamiliar names, not 
being aware that the questions, " Which were the powers in 
closest contact with Israel ? " and " Where did the ancestors of 
Israel sojourn before entering Canaan ? " are symbolised by 
these names. And not only this, but the due comprehension 
of the Hebrew traditions is bound up with the investigation of 
this subject. 

To prove this, let me select a few passages out of many, 
which contain the name of Asshur (or Shur) or Ashhur as a 
regional name of North Arabia, and which, with one exception, 
have been misunderstood. And first, Gen. xxv. 3 and Ezek. 
xxvii. 23. In the former Asshur[im] is connected most 
closely with Dedan, and only less closely with Sheba, which 
are admittedly North Arabian. In the latter, Asshur stands 
between Sheba and Kilmad, both which ought to be Arabian, 
only the commentators cannot adopt the only natural view. 
" Kilmad " is admittedly corrupt. Next, Gen. xxv. 18. Here, 
beyond doubt, Asshur is most easily explained as a North 
Arabian regional name. The true rendering is, " And they 
dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, which is in front (i.e. eastward) 
of Mizrim." To this an ancient gloss is added, "in the 
direction of Asshur." Shur is the short for Asshur. Another 

1 See American Journal of Theology, October 1907. 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY' 135 

passage is Gen. xxiv. 63. Here no doubt the text is corrupt, 
but the right correction, from the point of view of the 
theory, is evident. The common text may be represented 
thus : " And Isaac went out to x in the field at eventide " : x 
stands for a word which is untranslatable, and manifestly 
corrupt; in short, an unknown quantity. And until we try 
some new method, x is likely to remain x. My own experi- 
ence enables me to assert that the new method has been found, 
and that the true reading is, "to Ashhur," which should prob- 
ably be restored to verse 62, where a regional name is really 
wanted. Thus we get for verses 62, 63, "Now Isaac had 
come to Ashhur from the road (i.e. the caravan road) to the 
Well of Jerahmeel, for he was a dweller in the Negeb. And 
Isaac went out into the field at eventide," etc. Ashhur was 
probably not the region so called, but the city of Ephron, where 
Isaac's father dwelt for a time before his death. 1 The Well 
of Jerahmeel, miscalled Beer-lahai-roi, was the great central 
well of the north Jerahmeelite country. For a definite view 
of the situation of this country we may turn to Gen. xxv. 18, 
already explained. 

Another interesting passage is 1 Sam. xxiv. 14 (cp. the 
parallel, xxvi. 20). Can our Bible really give us the original 
writer's meaning? With tasteless servility the chivalrous 
David is here made to say what everyone remembers and 
wonders at. The true reading, however, of the closing words 
is, "a wild ass of Ashhur." A good part of the wide region 
called Ashhur (or Asshur) was no doubt steppe-country, 
where wild asses delighted to roam (Job xxxix. 5-8). That 
surely is a figure both fine in itself and specially appropriate 
for David, who roamed at large in the south country like a 
wild ass. 

We have seen where an early narrator placed the North 
Arabian Asshur. It is quite another thing to be able to 
locate it on the map. It is also troublesome that we have 
two Asshurs to provide for, there being apparently two uses 

1 See my Traditions and Beliefs, pp. 337 f., 349 f> 



136 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of the name, a narrower and a wider. 1 There was probably an 
Asshur which adjoined and may once have included the Negeb, 
and another which was remote from Southern Palestine and 
whose king at some period claimed suzerainty over the smaller 
kingdoms to the north, including especially Mizrim. Its 
capital was probably called Babel.* 

I have mentioned these things partly to justify my 
objection to the phrases "the Jerahmeel theory" and " Jerah- 
meelism," partly because of the intrinsic importance of the 
result to which the facts appear to point, viz. that the rulers 
of a distant Arabian land, called conventionally by the Israelites 
Asshur or Ashhur, were strong enough to invade the Negeb 
and the land of Judah, and were confounded by later scribes 
with kings of Assyria. The cause of the confusion is obvious ; 
it is that the tradition of Assyrian invasions was still in 
circulation. Parallels for the confusion will be given in my 
forthcoming book ; I may therefore proceed to explain another 
regional name, Mizrim, or, in Assyrian, Muzri or Muzur, which 
I have already had occasion to use. Whether it means 
" border-region " seems to me doubtful ; the true meaning of 
regional names is not always the most plausible one. There 
is, however, one result of criticism which seems to me to have 
not been overthrown either by Eduard Meyer or by Flinders 
Petrie or by the latest writer, A. T. Olmstead. 3 It is that 
there was a second land of Mizrim or Muzri, not indeed in the 
Negeb (as the latest writer strangely supposes Winckler to 
think), but in a tract of North Arabia extending perhaps as 
far south as Medina, and in the north probably not far removed 
from the better-known Mizrim, i.e. the Nile Valley. Many 
equally strange doublings of regional names will at once occur 

1 Hommel, however, who knows only of one Asshur, thinks it to have 
extended from the Wady-el-Arish (the miscalled " brook of Egypt") to Beer- 
sheba and Hebron, and that it is the A'shur mentioned together with Muzr in 
an ancient Minaean inscription. 

2 In the article by Professor Witton-Davies (Rev. of TheoL, 1908, p. 692), 
we find a "man of straw," a "Babel in the Negeb." What accuracy ! 

8 Sargon of Assyria (1908), pp. 56-71. 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY' 187 

to the student. For instance, it is an assured historical fact, 
not dependent on 1 Kings x. 18, 2 Kings vii. 6, that there was 
a third Muzri in North Syria. 

About the second Muzri there is, I admit, still much 
dispute. Winckler's opinion, however, so cogently maintained 
by him against Professor Eduard Meyer, has notable defenders. 
To say the least, it must be, and is, admitted that there are 
some inscriptional references to Muzri which cannot possibly 
mean either a North Syrian state or the land which we know 
as Egypt. 

Things being so, we must give our best attention to any 
evidence adduced from Assyrian or Egyptian sources, and 
the newest writer on Biblical archaeology l refers me, in 
correction of my own views, to Professor Flinders Petrie. Be 
it so. Eager and impetuous alike as an explorer and as a 
writer, Professor Petrie must produce some effect, even 
though it may not be what he desires. So I turn to his latest 
utterance of opinion, and what do I find ? He tells us that 
the theory of a second Muzri is a fantastic result of unchecked 
literary criticism. 2 Are we really expected to believe this ? 
I know that any unchecked criticism would be a dangerous 
thing ; but how can the Muzri theory, based as it is on 
inscriptional as well as literary evidence, be an example of 
this ? Or will it be asserted that unchecked inferences from 
inscriptions are less dangerous ? Can one, for instance, infer 
from the fact that " Sinai " contains Egyptian monuments 
down to the twentieth dynasty (Petrie, 1202-1102 B.C.), and 
from that other fact (if it be such) that the Egyptian frontier 
stretched across into South Palestine at many periods, that a 
Hebrew writer would call the added region Mizraim ? Yet 
Professor Petrie draws this inference, while frankly admitting 
(Researches, p. viii.) that "there is no trace (in Sinai) of any 
permanent garrison." Elsewhere 3 this scholar speaks of the 

1 See Prehistoric Archeology and the Old Testament, by H. J. Dukinfield 
Astley, M.A., Litt.D. 

2 Researches in Sinai, p. 195. 8 History of Egypt, iii. 283. 



138 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

supposed Muzri as situated in "the almost uninhabited desert/' 
Such an assertion, however, is arbitrary. As Winckler 
remarks, " If Roman civilisation penetrated into this region 
under Roman rule, Oriental civilisation penetrated before 
under Oriental rule " ; nor can we doubt that stimulating 
influences came from the more developed culture of South 
Arabia, especially if Winckler is right in supposing that the 
king of Meluba (West Arabia), who was probably the suzerain 
of Muzri, was the head of the Minsean empire, i.e. that the 
archaising phrase " king of Meluha " should rather be " king 
of Ma'in." 1 At any rate, North Arabia cannot fail to have 
been affected in many ways by the more civilised south. The 
tillage of any productive parts of the land would certainly not 
have been exempt from this influence, especially the important 
oases as far south as the neighbourhood of Medina. 

I have now to speak of passages respecting Muzri in the 
Assyrian inscriptions. And first of all, of the passage in 
which Tiglath-Pileser III. states that he appointed Idi-bi'lu 
(evidently an Arabian, not [as Olmstead] a tribe) to be kepu 
(strictly keputu), or, as we, thinking of Indian native states, 
might say, a " resident," over Muzri. Where was this Muzri 
situated ? In 1889 Winckler supposed the reference to be 
to the North Syrian Muzri, but in 1893, with more Tiglath- 
Pileser texts before him, he was able (in my opinion) to show 
that a North Arabian Muzri would alone satisfy the conditions 
of the case. Professor Petrie, however, whom our latest Biblical 
archaeologist brings up against me, interprets this Muzri as, 
not indeed the Nile Valley, but either what he calls Sinai or 
the Isthmus of Suez. One or two chiefs on the eastern side 
of the Egyptian empire, who had achieved their independence, 
may have made their submission and received an Assyrian 
resident. The theory takes no account of the other facts 
adduced by Winckler, and implies that the Assyrian king 
had an ill- served intelligence department. 

Next 1 will refer to an inscription of Sargon. It tells how 

1 See my forthcoming work (Decline and Fall of Kingdom of Judah). 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY" 139 

Jamani (probably a Jamanite or Javanite of North Arabia), 1 an 
adventurer put up by the anti- Assyrian party in Ashdod, fled 
before S argon " to the region of Muzur, which is at the entrance 
to Meluha." This at least is Winckler's present translation. 
The passage is by no means without difficulty. It would be 
possible to render, " to the border of Muzur, which (i.e. Muzur) 
is beside Meluha," which Professor Petrie paraphrases, " to 
the frontier of the Egyptian power in Sinai which joins on to 
Arabia." This, he says, is "a perfectly sound expression." 
It is at any rate sound English, but in what sense can it have 
been said that the region which Professor Petrie designates 
Sinai was distinct from Meluha ? And can Meluha be rightly 
paraphrased "Arabia" ? The inference which Professor Petrie 
and now (June 1908) Dr Olmstead 2 have not drawn from the 
Assyrian phraseology, but surely ought to have drawn, is that 
the Muzur referred to by S argon needed to be distinguished 
from some other Muzur, i.e. from Egypt. 

I have no inclination to prolong this debate. Dr Astley 
has accused me (not discourteously) of rashness on the ground 
of historical statements by Professor Petrie ; and these state- 
ments, upon examination, prove to be doubtful. Perhaps, 
however, some other writer may compel my assent. Let us 
search the magazines. Professor Eerdmans, in his notice of 
my Psalter, seems to me to have failed through misappre- 
hensions and unbending textual conservatism. I turn there- 
fore from Leyden to St Andrews, where Professor Menzies 
edits an excellent Review. Here I find an article as unpro- 
gressive in spirit and as liable to strange inaccuracies. The 
writer (Professor Witton-Davies) holds that every form of 
the North Arabian theory is "impossible." How can two 
peoples, both called Mizrites, " have existed side by side without 

1 Less probably a Phoenician or a Greek from Cyprus. Omri, Zimri, and 
Tibi were all probably adventurers from North Arabia : this is inferred from 
the names. Winckler, however, suggests that Jamani (Yamani) may mean a 
man of Jemen (Yemen). What is the history of the name Jemen ? Did the 
name Jaman (Jerahmeel) extend to South Arabia ? 

2 Sargon of Assyria, p. 79, note 68. 



140 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

some notice of the fact " ? And must not an exodus from a 
North Arabian land of Mizrim " have been known to at least 
the oldest writers (Amos, etc.) of the Bible, who connect it 
with the well-known Egypt ? " To these brief criticisms 1 will 
reply. As to the first, it is by no means certain that " no 
notice of the fact " was ever given. One notice we have found 
already in Sargon's inscription, and in such Old Testament 
passages as Deut. iv. 20, Ps. Ixxviii. 51, cv. 27, cvi. 21, 22 a 
reference to North Arabia (rather than to Egypt) is guaranteed 
by the rule of synonymous parallelism. Professor Witton- 
Davies may, indeed, question this in Deut. iv. 20, but the 
phrase " the furnace of iron " has no meaning, and only 
prejudice can oppose the methodical textual correction, " the 
furnace of Arabia of Ishmael " (T. and B., p. 109). Still less 
can it be denied that " Mizrim " in the passages from Psalms 
is synonymously parallel to " Ham." What then does this 
strangely short name signify ? I have answered the question 
elsewhere ( T. and B., p. 32, n. 2 ). It is an abridgment of the 
form " Jarham," and therefore equivalent to the racial as well 
as tribal name " Jerahmeel." Passing on to the second point, 
how can any critic possibly prove that references in Amos 
and Hosea to the " land of Mizrim " in connection with the 
Exodus mean " the land of Egypt " ? A thorough study of 
Amos and Hosea seems to point rather to the land of Mizrim, 
in North Arabia. 

I turn much more hopefully to Professor Nathaniel 
Schmidt, because he has attracted the censure of an opponent 
of my own, and because I know that, like Chaucer's priest, 
"gladly would he learn, and gladly teach." Indeed, his 
previous changes of opinion conclusively prove this. He is 
aware of the complexity of the problems before us, and fair 
enough to hold that neither Winckler's theories nor 'my own 
can possibly be as absurd as Professor Eduard Meyer and his 
younger allies suppose. At present he inclines 'to think that 
the kings of Muzri spoken of in certain Assyrian inscriptions 
were not kings or viceroys of a somewhat extensive North 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY' 141 

Arabian region, but dynasts residing either in Egypt or in 
districts adjoining it on the east, and also that the region 
called in these inscriptions Meluha was not Western Arabia 
but Ethiopia. I am sorry that Professor Schmidt should 
defend this, and against it would refer to Professor Winckler's 
able answer to Eduard Meyer. 1 I do not think that Meyer 
has made out his case, and Schmidt will certainly agree with 
me in objecting to his tone. Acute as he is, it is dangerous 
to take him for a master. 

Still, I do not myself belong to the irreconcilables, and, 
agreeing on this point with Winckler, am willing to make 
an admission in the interests alike of peace and of truth. It 
may be true that Meyer's view of Muzri and Melu^a has 
fewer elements of truth than Winckler's in the inscriptional 
passages to which a Muzri and Meluha theory is applied. 
But it may be that Egypt and Muzri alike, Magan and 
Meluha, meant to the Babylonians the southern part of the 
earth. 2 The door is thus opened for different geographical 
uses of these names. Magan, for instance, may mean the 
east and south of Arabia, but also conceivably India ; and 
Meluha sometimes the. north and west of Arabia, but also 
Nubia. At the same time, how can we believe that any 
Hebrew writer can have regarded Hagar as an Egyptian? 
The connotation of Mizrim must by a certain time have 
shrunk, leaving room for a twofold interpretation, Egypt and 
North Arabia. Similarly, Melulja may perhaps have come to 
mean either Ethiopia or West Arabia. 

Professor Witton-Davies in the same article speaks of " the 
confusion which, according to Winckler, abounds in our Bible," 
and (referring to myself) finds it "impossible that all our 
notions of ancient geography should be so muddled and 
muddling." 3 But can my critic assert that our " notions " of 
ancient Arabian geography were ever precise ? This was 

1 Diejilngsten Kdmpfer wider den Panbabylonismus, Leipzig, 1907. 

2 See Winckler, Enc. Biblica, " Sinai," sects. 4, 7. 

3 Review of Theology and Philosophy, May 1908, p. 697. 



142 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Professor Schmidt's great difficulty. For a long time he hesi- 
tated as a student of the new theories because of his " ignorance 
of a region of which we had no good maps and no accurate 
descriptions." Hence, when Winckler gave up the identifica- 
tion of the nakal Mizrim with the Wady-el-Arish, and main- 
tained that it was "the stream that rushes into the sea at 
Raphia," he withheld his own decision till he could examine 
the locality. Winckler 's difficulty, of course, was that he was 
loth to accuse a capable Assyrian scribe of topographical 
vagueness. Nor does Winckler speak of a " rushing stream." 
He is much too careful for that, and expressly remarks that 
even an insignificant watercourse might have political and 
legendary importance. Whether this is a conclusive argu- 
ment may be doubted. A watercourse like the Wady-el- 
Arish must, one would think, have been specially distinguished 
in phraseology. I have not myself seen the Wady, but the 
description of it given by the late lamented Lieutenant 
Haynes seems to me ground sufficient for adhering to the 
usual view. 

But the Cornell professor's interest centres in the Negeb, 
that region at the extreme south of Palestine which forms the 
transition to North Arabia. 

The cause of his interest is manifest it is the close associa- 
tion of spots in the Negeb with the history of religion. 
Some of the eloquent sentences in which he sums up his 
views sound almost like passages from the article on Prophecy 
in the Encyclopedia Biblica. Nor can I avoid mentioning 
that he still adheres to an opinion expressed by him in the 
same work, that "the Jerahmeelite theory unquestionably 
promises to throw much light on the obscure history of the 
Negeb." 1 Among the points of detail referred to is the ques- 
tion of the origin of the Cherethites, who, in David's early time, 
occupied a section of the Negeb. Were they really Philistines 
who had come over from Crete ? Professor Schmidt thinks so, 
and the view is widely held ; it is indeed as old as the Septua- 

1 Enc. Biblica, "Scythians," sect. 8. 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY' 1 148 

gint. We know, however, that Cherethites and Pelethites 
formed the bodyguard of King David, and it cannot, I think, 
be called likely that this force was composed partly of Semi- 
tised descendants of a Cretan race (Cherethites), partly of fully 
Semitic Arabian tribesmen, akin to David (Pelethites). The 
prevalent theory is based on 1 Sam. xxx. 16 (cp. ver. 14). 
But is it certain that "the land of the Philistines" is not 
equivalent to " the land of the Pelethites " ? Is it certain, too, 
that David's suzerain, the king of Gath, was a Philistine ? l 
If Achish were a Philistine, is it likely that he would have 
accepted David as a vassal, or that David would have wished 
to become one ? And is it not plain that Gath and Ziklag 2 
were further south than is consistent with their being in the 
ordinary sense Philistian localities ? 

Who the Cherethites were, we shall, I hope, see presently. 
At present I devote myself to the very difficult name 
"Philistine" (VIB&D). Most recent critics identify it with 
" Purusati," the first on the list of the " sea-peoples " which, 
perhaps about 1230 B.C., invaded Syria from the north, and 
were opposed on land and sea by Rameses III. I myself still 
accept this identification, but do not feel able to infer from it 
that Saul and David had to deal with Semitised descendants 
of the Purusati. With Hommel, I am of opinion that those 
of the Purusati who remained in Palestine found it convenient 
to settle in the north. Professor Schmidt will admit that this 
opinion is perfectly tenable, and that my own view, that the 
seemingly express references to Philistines in the Old Testa- 
ment are due to a confusion between Pelishtim and Pelethim, 
is at any rate plausible. For my own part, 1 cannot recall any 
other critical theory which is at all plausible. The confusion 
referred to must have spread widely in Palestine, and have 

1 A king of Ekron is called I-ka-u-su in an inscription of Esar-haddon. 
But (1 ) the reading is somewhat uncertain, and (2) in any case a Pelethite might 
have borne the names. 



2 ihpZ* probably from ^}pft=-T$ t p}--in#N, "Ashhur-Gilead." Gilead, 
originally a North Arabian name (Traditions and Beliefs, p. 389). 



144 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

been current even among the most highly educated class, from 
whom, in the eighth century, the Assyrian scribes derived it. 
We need not therefore emend " Philistines " into " Pelethites," 
provided that we attach a marginal gloss, "that is, Pelethites." 
There is evidence enough that the Old Testament writers 
really meant, not what the ordinary student means by 
" Philistines," but some population in Southern Palestine or 
North Arabia, which inhabited the Negeb (1 Sam. xxx. 16), and 
Gerar (Gen. xx., xxvi.), as well as the so-called five Philistine 
cities (Josh. xiii. 3). 

And who were those " Pelethites " 1 whom 1 am virtually 
substituting for the familiar Philistines ? Let us look at the 
evidence, (a) In three of the so-called Philistine cities Joshua 
is said to have found Anakites (Josh. xi. 22) : now pss is to 
be grouped with pa, jps, \pp, p3D, pS>os, all of which (even 
pDD) are in their origin North Arabian names, 2 and very possibly 
arose out of popular corruptions of SNOTT. (b) In 1 Sam. vii. 
14, after a statement that Israel recovered its lost territory out 
of the hands of the Philistines, we read that " there was peace 
between Israel and the Amorites." Now, the probability is 
that -no**, like the class-name -IDN from BIN, has come by a 
popular transposition of letters from TDIN (one belonging to 
the southern Aram), (c) In Judges xiv. 3, xv. 18 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 
6, xvii. 26, 36, xxxi. 4 ; 2 Sam. i. 20, we find *n (Arel[ite]), 
D^rw (Arelites), either in the text or as a gloss, where ^nmSo 
(Philistine), DTIID^D (Philistines), or rather ^nf?o (Pelethite), 
D^nbo (Pelethites) are meant. Now Arel[i] is only a popular 
corruption of Jerahmeel[i], unless indeed anyone deliberately 
prefers the tasteless and misleading traditional rendering. 3 
(d) In 1 Chron. ii. 25-33, which is based on old traditions, we 
have a record in genealogical form of a number of Jerahmeelite 
peoples or clans. If we look closely at the names we shall see 

* See Enc. Biblica, " Pelethites " ; Traditions and Beliefs, p. 312. 

2 Traditions and Beliefs, pp. 121, 175. 

8 If the reader will hunt up the references to " uncircumcision " in the 
Old Testament, and avail himself of the help I have offered, he will receive an 
agreeable shock of surprise. 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY' 45 

that some of them at least are corruptions either of Jerahmeel 
or of some equivalent name, such as Ishmael, Asshur, Ashkar, 
or Ashtar. Thus Ram is the same name as Aram (see p. 140) ; 
.Tether comes from Ashtar, and Atarah also from Ashtar, but with 
the feminine ending ; Jamin is a modification of Jaman (see 
p. 139), and Eker of Ashkar ; while Peleth, like Tubal (Gen. x. 
2) and Tophel (Deut. i. 1), comes- from an ancient corruption 
of Ishmael, viz. Ethbal. In short, the phrase Peleth ben 
Jerahme'el indicates that the Pelethites were one of the many 
peoples into which the ancient Jerahmeelite or Ishmaelite race 
broke up. According to Am. ix. 7 the Philistines, i.e. the 
Pelethites, came from Caphtor, and the original reading of 
Gen. x. 14 probably agreed with this ; Caphtor is obviously an 
Arabian region, and by a permutation of letters iinoD has not 
improbably come from rnnm (Rehoboth). And now at length 
we see what the Cherethites were, viz. certainly North Arabians 
and probably Rehobothites ; and since Cherethites (like Cherith) 
is almost certainly Caphtor, and the Pelethites are distinctly 
said to have migrated from Caphtor, we may reasonably hold 
that tradition admitted no difference between Cherethites and 
Pelethites. 

So much for the names, which, here as elsewhere, are 
symbols of historical facts. But was David really a kinsman 
of the Pelethites ? Most probably. How else could he so 
easily have obtained a hold on the Negeb, and become, as Pro- 
fessor Schmidt puts it, " the creator of the Judean state " ? 
Did not one of his sisters marry an Ishmaelite 1 (2 Sam. xvii. 
25), and he himself take one of his two first wives from 
(the southern) Jezreel (1 Sam. xxv. 43) ? It is true, he is said 
to have been born at Beth-lehem of Judah (1 Sam. xvii. 12). 
But there were presumably several places called Beth-lehem ; 
the second part of the name is a popular variation of some 
shortened form of Jerahmeel, like melah in ge melah (Eng. 
vers. " valley of salt "), so that we can well believe that there 
were several Bethlehems, and that one was in Zebulun, another 

1 "Israel" and " Ishmael" are confounded, cf. 1 Chron. ii. 16. 
VOL. VII. No. 1. 10 



146 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

in the later Judah (the modern Beit Lahrti), and another in 
the Negeb of Judah. It is also true that David's father is 
called an Ephrathite (1 Sam. xvii. 12). But the same appel- 
lation is given to Samuel's father, though he was doubtless 
of southern origin ; indeed, the Septuagint expressly calls him 
a " son of Jerahmeel " (the Hebrew text has, " son of Jarham," 
which means the same thing). Hence, unless we assume 
two inconsistent traditions and neglect 1 Chron. ii. 19, 24, 
we must obviously hold that there was a Calebite, or, as we 
might also say, a Jera.hmeelite, district called Ephrath. 

On the Philistine question, therefore, I agree more nearly 
with Mr Stanley A. Cook (Critical Notes, 1907) than with 
Professor Schmidt. But I have still quite sufficient points of 
contact with the latter respecting the Jerahmeelites and the 
Negeb. Not that even here we are completely agreed. I 
think that Israelites and Jerahmeelites began to mingle as 
early as the Exodus. 1 It also seems to me to stand to reason 
that the Jerahmeelites called Cherethites and Pelethites not 
merely served David in his bodyguard but intermarried with 
Israel, and settled in the enlarged territory of Judah. I should 
not say without qualification that it was David who made 
Yahweh the God of Israel, for 1 think that long before David's 
time the priesthood represented by Jethro incorporated a 
number of Israelite clans into the people (federation) of the 
Jerahmeelite God Yahweh, an event which marks the 
entrance of the original Israel upon a more settled stage of 
life. But we must, of course, acknowledge that David did 
much to heighten the prestige of the cult of Yahweh, as 
practised at Jerusalem. 

With regard to Moses, Professor Schmidt held at one time 
that he was the historical creator of Israel, who gave to his 
people a new divinity, Yahweh. Now, however, he sees that 
Moses is a " mythical figure," whose home was first in Midian 
and then in Kadesh-Barnea, agreeing in essentials with the 
article " Moses " (sects. 14, 17) in the Encyclopaedia Biblica. 

1 Traditions and Beliefs, p. 546, and cp. p. 382. 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY' 147 

In details the writer of that article might not always agree with 
the American professor. But on this important point he has 
the support both of Professor Schmidt and of Professor Eduard 
Meyer, viz. that "modern historical research, when it seeks 
for the earliest history of the Hebrew tribes, must travel away 
from Egypt into North-west Arabia." Whether these two 
scholars agree in inferring from the supposed Egyptian names 
Moses and Phinehas that the priestly families of Kadesh must 
have had some connection with Egypt, I do not know. It is 
at any rate Professor Meyer's view, but I trust that no one 
will be so rash as to adopt it. I observe that Professor 
Schmidt congratulates himself (p. 338) that his own and 
Professor Meyer's main conclusion " does not in the least 
depend upon the acceptance of the Muzri theory." The 
statement is literally correct. I venture, however, to think 
that the conclusion referred to would be stronger if the two 
scholars did accept that theory, and if one of them at least did 
not support a disproved explanation of Mosheh (Moses) and 
the less probable of the two possible explanations of Pinehas 
(Phinehas). 1 It may be added that even if the tradition of 
the sojourn of the Hebrew clans in Muzri be rejected, it 
supplies valuable evidence of the North Arabian connection of 
the Israelites and of Moses. But I for my part question 
whether that tradition ought altogether to be abandoned. 

On another question this fair-minded critic proclaims his 
agreement with me (p. 333). He thinks that I have " rightly 
divined" Jerahmeelite influence upon Judah in post-exilic 
times. It is indeed certain that Jerahmeelite tribes, under 
whatever names, were driven north in the Persian period by 
the advancing Edomites (themselves pressed by the Nabateans), 
and so infused a North Arabian element into the weakened 
population of Judah. There is evidence for this in Ezra and 
Nehemiah, and to some uncertain extent in Chronicles. Thus 
in the post-exilic catalogue of "the men of the people of 
Israel" (Ezr. ii., Neh. vii.) we find among the names, as given 

Traditions and Beliefs, pp. 173, 521. 



148 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

in the Hebrew text, the bene Par'osh (the Flea-clan ! ) and the 
bene Pashhur (unexplained), designations which (like most 
others) have had a strange history, and ultimately come, each 
by its own road, from bene 'Arab-Asshur and its equivalent 
bene 'Arab-Ashhur respectively ; also the bene 'Elam Aher, 
i.e. bene 'Elam Ashhur; the bene Ater, i.e. bene Ashtar; the 
bene Salmai, i.e. the bene Salmah ; the bene 'abde Shelomoh, 
i.e. bene * Arab- Salmah. We find, too, the place-names Tel- 
Melah, i.e. Tubal-Jerahmeel, and Tel-Harsha, i.e. Tubal- 
Ashhur. These names prove that many families from the 
region still conventionally called Asshur ( = Ashhur, Ashtar) 
or Jerahmeel were admitted into the renovated Israelite com- 
munity. Presumably they were proselytes or the children of 
proselytes. We also hear much in Ezra and Nehemiah of the 
abundance of mixed marriages, which, however, were not 
recognised by the religious authorities. In Neh. xiii. 23, 24 
wives of Ashdodite origin are specially mentioned ; Ashdod 
(from Asshur-Dod) is a regional name of North Arabia. 
Another witness for an Asshurite or Jerahmeelite immigration. 
Let us turn next to the list of builders of the wall (Neh. iii.). 
The goldsmith and the spice-merchant in verse 8 were, surely, a 
Zarephathite and a Korahite respectively. The " ben Hur " in 
verse 9 was of an Ashhurite family. In verse 14 we meet with 
a Rechabite, i.e. a Kenite, and at the end of the list with a 
number of Zarephathites and Jerahmeelites (surely not gold- 
smiths and merchants). Two of these, it will be noticed, are 
heads of political districts. 

It would be unwise to reject this criticism as speculative. 
Evidence from names, critically treated, is almost irresistible. 
I will not, however, deny that its value would be increased by 
monumental evidence. It is, of course, too soon to say that 
no monuments exist, for we have not yet looked for them. 1 
Professor Schmidt's recent expeditions into the Negeb, when 
Director of the American School of Archaeology, were 
rather preliminary surveys than explorations, and the North 

1 Cp. Winckler, in Helmolt's Weltgeschichte, iii. 230. 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY' 149 

Arabian Muzri, supposed by Winckler and myself, was out of 
his range. He informs us that he found but few tells in the 
Negeb, a circumstance which may surprise us, considering the 
long list of " cities " in Josh. xv. 21-32 (cp. Neh. xi. 25-30). 
We need not, indeed, suppose that that list accurately repre- 
sents the Negeb of early times ; still the early cities (partly 
disclosed to us by textual criticism) cannot have been much 
fewer. Let us remember, however, that " city " in the Old 
Testament may mean very little. Many so-called " cities " 
were of highly perishable materials, and would be easily effaced 
by the destroyer's hand. 

One criticism I cannot help making, that Professor 
Schmidt, like Professor Meyer before him, confines the 
Jerahmeelites within too narrow an area. It is true that in 
1 Sam. xxvii. 10, xxx. 14 the Negeb appears to be divided 
into sections, one belonging to Judah, and others to the 
Jerahmeelites. But, properly speaking, Jerahmeel was not a 
tribe but a race, and is to be distinguished from the tribes 
which broke off from the parent stock, and sometimes even 
developed into peoples. But to prove that the name Jerah- 
meel or Ishmael has much more than a tribal reference would 
require a far-reaching investigation which I am on the point 
of giving elsewhere. 

There is also another American professor (Dr H. P. 
Smith of Meadville) whom I cannot presume to ignore, but to 
whom I am unable to express gratitude for his treatment of 
my recent researches. Listen to this sentence from the article 
already referred to : 

" We are at a loss to discover why Jabal, Jubal, Mahalaleel, 
Lamech, . . . should not have been allowed to appear in 
their original form as Jerahmeel, or why Joktheel should 
supplant Jerahmeel as the name of a city, or why Beer-lahai-roi 
should be forced into the place of en- Jerahmeel " (p. 566). 

Allowed ! Supplant ! Be forced ! Could there be any 
greater proof of unwillingness to enter into a new point of view 
than this ? Surely the first duty of the critic is not to tell the 



150 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

world whether he agrees with, i.e. is prejudiced in favour of, 
some other scholar, but to show that he comprehends the 
other's point of view. And the second duty is "like unto it." 
It is to study the new tracks which the new point of view has 
suggested to that other, and state where he understands and 
where he requires further help, and also, no doubt, where he 
can himself offer help to that other. And the whole inves- 
tigation should be permeated by the spirit of fairness and 
accuracy. 

But no, the critic is not to be the fellow-student and in 
some sense the disciple of that other, but his judge. As if 
any critic could venture either to praise or to blame a book 
of extensive range and originality, except with modesty and 
as the result of sympathetic study ! A judge, indeed, is not 
called upon to be modest, but how can any critic pass sentence 
upon a book of this character? If he assumes the role of 
judge, is he not in imminent danger of hindering the progress 
of his study, and discouraging that originality which is the 
salt of learning, and the prize of long years of critical research ? 

Professor Smith does not seem to have realised that the 
stories which underlie the Israelite legends were, many of 
them, brought from a distance, and that with the stories came 
the names of the legendary places and the legendary heroes. 
These stories, if I see aright, were derived from different 
tribes, all Jerahmeelite, and it is probable that almost in each 
the name Jerahmeel took a different form or different forms. 
That ethnic names like Jerahmeel, Ishmael, Asshur, Israel, 
should be worn down by use, was inevitable, and the attrition 
would have different results among different groups of people. 
When, therefore, it is said that Jabal and Jubal are forms of 
Jerahmeel, and that Jubal is a form of Ishmael, it is not 
meant that they have come directly from Jerahmeel or 
Ishmael, but from some popular or tribal corruptions of these 
names. 

There is much more that ought to be said if space allowed, 
but for this I must refer to the introduction to my forth- 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY' 151 

coming work, The Decline and Fall of the Kingdom of Judah. 
One point of much importance may, however, be indicated. 
When Samaria was taken, the catastrophe which ensued was 
not only political but literary. What was saved of the North 
Israelitish records must have been scanty in extent, and the 
South Israelites or Judaites did not care to preserve it except 
in a mutilated, confused, and altered form. Hence by far the 
greater part of the extant literary monuments of ancient Israel 
are precisely those monuments whose producers were most 
preoccupied by North Arabia. This is why the history both 
of Israel and of Judah has found such a one-sided representation 
in the Old Testament. This, too, is why the North Arabian 
key has plausibly solved so many problems, that critics who 
have perhaps not gone deeply enough into the matter are 
repelled. Had a different class of documents been trans- 
mitted, the North Arabian key might not have equally 
fitted the new problems. I trust that this consideration may 
tend to conciliate opponents, and induce them to assume the 
role, not of judges, but of fellow- students. As Professor 
William James well says, " When larger ranges of truth open, 
it is surely best to be able to open ourselves to their reception, 
unfettered by our previous pretensions." 

T. K. CHEYNE. 

OXFORD. 



HOW MAY CHRISTIANITY BE DEFENDED 

TO-DAY ? 

PROFESSOR A. C. M'GIFFERT, 

Union Theological Seminary, New York. 

THE changes in religious ideals and in theological beliefs 
witnessed in recent years have resulted in widespread confusion 
touching the aim and method of Christian Apologetic. What 
is it the Christian Apologist has to prove, and how is he to do 
it ? In discussing this question, I wish to avow at the start my 
sympathy with the modern social emphasis, and to declare my 
belief that Christianity stands primarily for the promotion of 
the Kingdom of God in this earth, that is, the reign of 
sympathy and service among men. The number of Christians 
holding this belief is very large and constantly increasing. It 
is in their emphasis upon it that the principal characteristic of 
modern Christianity is to be found. It differs from traditional 
Christianity not chiefly because modern Christians disbelieve 
many of the things the fathers believed, but because, in their 
interest in this one great end, many of the things the fathers 
believed seem unimportant to them. It is not doubt of the 
truth of traditional doctrines, but doubt of their value, that is 
always most ominous. The former may testify only to a 
scepticism which exists in every period ; the latter foretells the 
coming of a new age. When many men are interested enough 
in a particular system to attack it, it still has a hold upon the 
world ; when they are too absorbed in other matters to trouble 
themselves about it, its day is over. And so it is evident that 



152 



THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 153 

a new age has dawned in the history of Christianity and the 
old apologetic is out-of-date, not because it attempts to 
prove so many unbelievable things, but because it attempts to 
prove so many things in which men have no interest. Much 
mattered in other days which does not matter now. An 
apologetic which is to be of any value to-day must defend the 
things that matter to-day, and only those. The question, then, 
for the modern apologist is not merely what is true, but what 
is important. What is the one thing, if there be one thing, 
that really counts the one thing whose acceptance or rejection 
means the acceptance or rejection of Christianity? For this 
it is the business of the Christian apologist to secure approval 
and support. Failing this, his apologetic is a failure, whatever 
else he may successfully defend. 

I. The apologist who believes that Christianity stands 
primarily for the promotion of the Kingdom of God in this 
earth, that is, the reign of sympathy and service among men 
and it is only for those who believe this that I propose to 
speak in this paper must labour to secure the recognition and 
adoption of this ideal ; to convince men that it is not only 
worthful but supreme. And, fortunately, it is easier now 
than formerly to convince men of this. Without as well as 
within the church there are multitudes to whom it is already a 
commonplace, and who recognise the service of their fellows as 
their highest duty. In other days chief emphasis has often 
been laid upon a man's duty to God or to himself, but now his 
duty to his neighbour overshadows all else. The widespread 
recognition of this duty and the widespread interpretation of 
Christianity in these terms have gone hand in hand and are 
the fruit of similar influences. Those who read the Gospel 
thus are children of their age, and have a message which appeals 
to it with peculiar force. 

But though the spirit of the present day is widely in 
sympathy with this ideal, the apologist's task is not as simple 
as it seems. It is not that there is difficulty in securing the 



154 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

practical realisation of the ideal, and inducing men actually to 
live in accordance with such a principle, for with this apologetic 
has nothing to do. It deals with theoiy only, not with practice. 
But to secure even in theory the general recognition of the 
supremacy of the principle of service is not easy. The more 
clearly the principle is apprehended and its consequences under- 
stood, the sharper often becomes the antagonism to it. A 
prominent judge of sterling integrity and of the highest moral 
character, after listening recently to a clear and forceful 
presentation of the social message of Christianity, remarked 
that he believed the speaker had stated accurately the real 
teaching of Jesus and the real meaning of Christianity, and 
just because of this he was not a Christian, for to him the 
only possible state of human society seemed a state of competi- 
tion, not co-operation, where every man looks out primarily for 
his own interest, and only secondarily for that of others. To 
maintain anything else and to labour for anything else seemed 
to him only fanaticism or folly, and argued small acquaintance 
with the real world of men. And this spirit is no exception even 
in these days of new social interest and enthusiasm. Few may 
be willing to avow themselves so frankly, but that present 
conditions are essentially unalterable and bound to persist, 
and that anybody who attempts to meddle with them is a 
dangerous character, and that any interpretation of Christianity 
which threatens their stability is mischievous this is a 
widespread belief, and it is with men thinking thus that 
our apologetic has first to deal. Is the highest thing in the 
world the promotion of the reign of sympathy and service 
among men, or is it not ? Is a state of society in which the 
spirit of brotherhood, voicing itself in mutual sympathy and 
service, is in complete control supremely desirable, or is it 
not ? And if it is, is it an end worthy the effort of rational 
men, or is it so impracticable as not to be entitled to serious 
consideration a mere Utopia, no better than an idle dream ? 
This is a fundamental question. Rational men must be 
convinced of the practicability as well as the desirability of 



THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 155 

the idea] or they will not accept it. Not that we must show 
that perfection is attainable, or that we are to expect this 
or any other ideal to be fully realised. With such perfection, 
as with the Absolute in general, the modern apologist has 
nothing to do. But that it is a distinctly practicable ideal, 
whose realisation can be promoted by honest and united 
effort; that the reign of sympathy and service can be pro- 
gressively substituted for selfish rivalry and cut-throat com- 
petition this the apologist must maintain, and his success 
in winning support for his ideal will be largely in pro- 
portion to his success in convincing men of this possibility. 
The apologist must show first that the highest thing a 
man can do is to put himself and his talents at the 
service of the community, to help those who need help, and 
to enrich the common life of man by all that he can give it, 
whether of art, or science, or learning, or wealth, or physical 
strength, or moral goodness, or ethical ideals ; and secondly, 
that, doing this, he is not merely wasting his energies, but is 
contributing to the progressive realisation of the highest 
social ideal, the Kingdom of God on earth. If the apologist 
cannot show this, his apologetic is a failure. 

II. The one fundamental thing is to win support for this 
ideal. If all good men can be enlisted in the promotion of 
this end it matters little by what name they call themselves, 
Christians, Jews, Ethical Culturists, Humanitarians, Free- 
thinkers, Agnostics, or Atheists. This the broad-minded man 
of to-day, to whom the ideal of service is supreme, freely 
recognises, whether he be a Christian or not ; and so we have 
the many co-operative efforts of modern times, in which 
men of the most various faiths unite for the promotion of 
a common end. 

But for the Christian apologist it is not enough to stop 
with the defence of this common ideal of service. Men may 
be led to recognise it and to make it their own, but they 
may remain entirely out of sympathy with Christianity as they 



156 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

understand it, and the Christian apologist cannot be content 
to leave them thus. His principal interest should be to effect 
the adoption of the ideal of service ; but he is interested also, 
if he be a Christian apologist, to secure recognition for 
Christianity, and this not as an independent and unrelated 
thing, but as itself the chief embodiment of men's purpose to 
promote the ideal. This may seem to many of little import- 
ance. If the ideal be adopted and in the way of realisation, 
all else is of minor consequence. But the matter cannot be 
so easily dismissed. To leave men of good-will divorced from 
Christianity and out of sympathy with Christ is to divide the 
forces that make for the promotion of the Kingdom, and to 
fail to recognise this ideal as the Christian ideal is to leave the 
great Christian movement uncommitted to the purpose which 
should be its supreme concern. Even Christian men may 
recognise so clearly the supremacy of the ideal that they would 
stand for it though it should prove not to be Christian ; but if 
it be Christian so much the better for Christianity, and so much 
the better for the ideal. Standing for the highest purpose we 
know, Christianity rallies increasingly to its standard men to 
whom that purpose is supreme, and in support of that purpose 
is enlisted all the faith, the love, the loyalty, the devotion, the 
sacrifice which the name of Jesus inspires in the breasts of 
multitudes who rejoice to call themselves His disciples. And 
so a second step in Christian apologetic should be to show that 
the ideal for which we stand is truly Christian ; that to promote 
the reign of sympathy and service among men was the control- 
ling purpose of Christ Himself, and must be the controlling 
purpose of Christianity if it would be true to Him. Fortunately, 
modern study of Jesus has made this very clear, and we are 
recognising with a unanimity never reached in other days that it 
was for this Jesus laboured, and for this He summoned men to 
follow Him, and so inaugurated the great movement which bears 
His name, all unconscious though He may have been of what 
it was to lead to. But it is not enough to show this simply ; 
it is necessary to make clear that this is the one essential 



THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 157 

thing in Christianity in such a sense that the man who stands 
for this principle is truly Christian even though he reject all 
else that commonly goes by the name of Christian, and that 
the man who avows himself a Christian thereby commits 
himself at least to this one great purpose, whatever else he 
may support or repudiate. If we succeed in showing this 
both to men without and men within the church, we shall 
commend Christianity to those who share the one supreme 
ideal, and we shall rally to the support of that ideal those to 
whom Christianity is dear. We shall thus at the same time 
promote the credit of Christianity and multiply the forces 
making for the realisation of the ideal we have most at heart. 

III. Undoubtedly a man may make this ideal his own, 
and may consciously follow Christ in a life of sympathy and 
service, and yet be quite without religious faith and devotion. 
To such a man no one may rightfully deny the name of 
Christian. To live Christianly is to give oneself to the pro- 
motion of the end for which Christ lived, whatever one's 
religious faith or lack of faith. But Christ gave His message 
a religious basis, whose significance and value the modern 
apologist clearly recognises, and so a third step in his apologetic 
is to commend that religious basis to men of good-will ; is 
to show that the purpose which Jesus made His own, and 
which we recognise as supreme, is the purpose of God Himself, 
the Christian God. 

The traditional belief in the pre-existence and deity of 
Christ represents a sound instinct. It voices the conviction 
that the Christian ideal, if it is to have supreme worth and 
permanent validity, and if its ultimate realisation is to be 
guaranteed, must come from God and have His support. 
Christians to-day may recognise that the traditional doctrine 
is defective, and may see that there are other and perhaps 
better ways of conserving the interest which it has conserved. 
But Christian instinct demands that in some way the connec- 
tion shall be made and the divine basis found, and so Christian 



158 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

apologetic maintains that the idea which it has shown to be 
supreme and Christian is divine, that it represents the will 
and the purpose of God. Maintaining this, there is added to 
the conviction of its worth faith in its realisation. To effort 
is joined confidence, to devotion assurance. This is the 
essential nature of Christian faith. Not that God is the 
Creator of the world, the absolute substance, the unifying 
principle of existence, the summum bonum, the all-pervading 
Spirit, but that He is will and power for the promotion of 
the Christian purpose. Other kinds of faith in God may be 
good, and may bring comfort, inspiration, and joy ; but this is 
the one specifically Christian faith. And upon it the Chris- 
tian apologist lays stress, not because a man cannot live 
Christianly without it as a matter of fact, multitudes of 
devout Christians have known nothing of it but because it 
supplies power for the promotion of the one great end, which 
is to be had in no other way. 

The modern apologist, therefore, cannot escape the tradi- 
tional theistic obligation. To promote belief in God is an 
important part of his task, not, to be sure, as an end in itself, 
but as a means to another end. But the theism in which he 
is interested is of a different type from that upon which 
traditional apologetic has laid stress. Modern disbelief in God 
(whether disbelief is more or less common than in other days) 
is due in large measure to the persuasion of the self-sufficiency 
of the phenomenal universe, to the feeling that God is needed 
to account neither for its origin nor for its continuance. With 
this disbelief Christian apologetic has nothing to do, and its 
wide prevalence is no ground for alarm. If Christian faith 
were dependent upon the overcoming of this unbelief we 
might well be discouraged. But Christian faith moves wholly 
in another realm, the realm of ethical values. For the 
Christian imbued with the modern spirit God exists for the 
sake of the ideals which are precious to him. If they are 
realisable, it is because they are rational, because they are in 
line with, and not opposed to, the universe in which they must 



THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 159 

be realised ; in other words, because divinity is at the heart of 
things, and they themselves are divine. It is just this faith 
which the Christian message brings, and just this faith which 
the life of Jesus, a life of victory in seeming defeat, guarantees. 
That the world recognises His victory means, if the world but 
knew it, that it recognises not simply the beauty but the 
validity of His ideals, or, in other words, it means that the 
world recognises their divinity. Thus the modern apologist 
gives to the supreme ideal which he is chiefly interested to 
promote the support of religious faith. The ideal once recog- 
nised as God's commends itself to multitudes of believers in 
God to whom it meant nothing before, and to those to whom 
it was already dear the faith that it is God's gives a new 
enthusiasm and courage. The wise apologist deals in affirma- 
tions, not negations. He does not make the mistake of 
denying the Christian character of the ideal divorced from 
its religious basis, and so alienate from its support those to 
whom the religious message does not appeal ; but he recognises 
the immense power of the latter where it is a reality, and he 
labours to make it increasingly and ever more widely real. 

IV. Finally, it is quite possible that a man may accept 
Christianity both as an ethic and as a religion, and yet remain 
out of sympathy with the Christian church and apart from 
its communion. His love of personal independence, which 
he fears may be imperilled if he becomes a member of such 
an institution, his dislike of engaging in public religious 
exercises, his distaste for established rites and ceremonies, his 
recognition of the faults of the church, and his lack of sympathy 
with much for which it stands all this and much else may 
lead him to hold himself aloof. But Christian apologetic has 
not accomplished its full work until it has shown the im- 
portance of the Christian church, and commended it to all 
those who are devoted to the promotion of the Kingdom of 
God on earth. It is the business of the Christian apologist 
to prove that, in spite of all its failures and mistakes, in spite 



160 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of its frequent distortion of values, and its all too common 
emphasis upon the wrong things, the Christian church has an 
indispensable place in the promotion of the great cause, and 
so to rally around it all to whom that cause is dear. For this 
purpose it is not necessary to defend any existing church or 
all existing churches, but to show that Christian church there 
must be if the Christian purpose is to be progressively realised 
in this our world. And that can be shown chiefly in 
two ways. 

In the first place, the Christian purpose is a social purpose. 
It has to do with the reign of sympathy and service among 
men, and so eventuates not in the perfection of the individual 
character, conceived as an isolated unit, but in the perfecting 
of men's relations with one another. To accomplish this social 
end it is imperative that there be conscious community of 
purpose and conscious combination of effort. For men 
interested in the common end to work in complete isolation 
is not only to sacrifice the strength which union of forces gives, 
but to make the realisation of the end itself impossible. The 
end is co-operation as broad as the brotherhood of man, and 
this can be promoted only by similar co-operation on a smaller 
scale and in a more limited circle. If those interested in the 
great end cannot work with others similarly interested, the 
hope of a universal co-operation is certainly small. The prin- 
cipal reason why so many who are devoted to the promotion 
of the one great purpose find themselves out of sympathy with 
the church, and hold themselves aloof from it, is that the 
church has so widely concerned itself with other irrelevant or 
inconsistent ends, and so seems to have no significance for the 
promotion of the Kingdom, which must come rather in spite of 
it than because of it. If this were the case if the church 
were really an obstacle rather than a help to the promotion 
of the Kingdom of God on earth no other benefits that might 
accrue from it, however valuable in themselves, would justify 
the Christian apologist in coming to its defence. But the 
failure of any or all existing churches to fulfil their true mission 



THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 161 

would be no sufficient ground for the assumption that we 
could do without a church altogether. If those we now have 
do not stand for the right purpose they should be reformed 
or others put in their place, but church there must be if 
the purpose is to be accomplished ; that is, there must be 
co-operation instead of individualistic, isolated labour. Any 
institution in which such co-operation exists is a Christian 
church whatever its relation to the historic institutions that 
bear that name. To the degree in which the various agencies 
making towards the one Christian end co-operate consciously 
and sympathetically is the one church of Christ realised. Not 
sacraments, or doctrines, or historic descent, or ministerial 
succession, makes the Christian church in which the modern 
apologist is interested, but an organised body of men enlisted 
for the promotion of the one great end, wide enough to em- 
brace them all, and of such a character as to call out their 
best effort and enthusiasm. In such community of purpose and 
of effort are found all the blessings of Christian communion 
that the church has promised to its members. Communion 
with Christ and with the saints means, above all else, com- 
munity of effort for the one great Christian end. 

In the second place, the church is indispensable because 
no ideal can establish itself permanently unless it be made a 
part of the heritage of each rising generation ; unless it be 
knit into their fibre by early training, and grow with them to 
maturity. For such implanting of the ideal, not simply in 
an individual here and there, but in an entire community, and 
even in an entire civilisation, institutions are needed which 
embody that ideal, and visibly symbolise it to generation after 
generation. If the ideal of sympathy and service be not 
inculcated diligently, persuasively, unremittingly ; if it be not 
kept alive by constant emphasis, by common effort, and by 
visible symbol, it will soon be lost altogether. And here lies 
the great significance of the church as an historic, world-wide 
institution, tracing its lineage back to Jesus Christ, in whom 
the Christian purpose found its supreme embodiment, and 
VOL. VII. No. 1. 11 



162 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

consecrated by the lives and deaths of multitudes of those who 
have humbly and faithfully followed Him. The Christian 
church, within which, in spite of all its errors, is kept alive 
the memory of Jesus and devotion to Him, and within which 
has been cultivated during all the centuries faith in His Father 
God, and confidence in His purpose to establish the Kingdom 
such an institution has untold value for the accomplishment 
of the Christian purpose. No society which we could form 
to-day could begin to do what it may do if it be committed 
to the one great end. All the loyalty of its members to Jesus 
Christ and to His Father God, and all their loyalty to the 
church itself, the church of their fathers and their church, 
though it may often have led them astray, is capable of being 
enlisted for the promotion of the Kingdom. Not to condemn 
and repudiate the church, and not to hold oneself aloof from 
it in contempt or indifference, but to reinterpret to itself its 
own ideal, in order that its heritage of power may be employed 
for the realisation of that ideal that is the wise method for 
all to whom the ideal is dear. And no Christian apologetic 
has fulfilled its task until it has made this clear to all men of 
good-will. 

An apologetic which should succeed in showing these four 
things : first, that the ideal of human sympathy and service 
is the highest of all ideals ; secondly, that this is the Christian 
ideal in such a sense that the man who shares it may properly 
call himself a Christian, and that the man who would be truly 
a Christian must make it his own ; thirdly, that this Christian 
ideal is a divine ideal, supported and promoted by God ; and 
fourthly, that the Christian church is an institution in the long 
run indispensable for the promotion and realisation of this ideal 
an apologetic which should succeed in showing all this 
would seem a sufficient and indeed complete Christian 
apologetic, leaving out nothing essential and including nothing 
unimportant. 

A. C. M'GIFFERT. 

NEW YORK. 



BOOKLESS RELIGION. 1 
JAMES MOFFATT, D.D. 

BY bookless religion I do not mean brainless religion. At the 
outset I would disclaim emphatically the slightest desire to 
undervalue either theology or literature as factors in the 
discipline of the Christian ministry. Theology is like guide- 
books ; both are commonly depreciated by the very class of 
people who stand in sorest need of them. Within certain 
obvious limits, the more books a minister can manage to read, 
the better for himself and for his people. The theological 
college is at any rate one place where a man should learn to 
sink intellectual mines which will repay working in the after- 
days. If he learns there how to read hard and wisely, how 
economical it is to study large books by experts, and how 
fruitful is all work done at first-hand upon the sources, he will 
probably have done much by anticipation to preserve his 
ministry not only from the unbalanced vagaries of the amateur 
in theology, but from that error which, I imagine, our best 
people resent or at least ought to resent the error of suppos- 
ing that to preach adequately means the public reading of a 
literary essay touched more or less delicately with religion. 

What is before my mind is rather an attitude of 
life which we find among men ; it is a way of looking at 
religious truth which may be that of Kenan's Gavroche or of a 
higher type, often characterised by considerable penetration 
and common sense, by such qualities as honesty, shrewdness, 
and moral interest, yet to a very minor degree nourished by 

1 An address to students for the Christian ministry. 
163 



164 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

reading. It appears to me that this temper or attitude is more 
influential than some of us are at first disposed to admit. Our 
academic training tends to exaggerate the importance which 
attaches to the printed page. Books form so large and central 
a factor in our early world of educational discipline that we are 
apt to assign quite an undeserved circumference to what is 
known as the reading public. It is assumed, too lightly, that 
the majority of people, with whom most of us have to deal, are 
familiar, or desire to be familiar, with serious literature. As a 
matter of fact, they are not. 1 deplore this, but I cannot deny 
it. " The public which reads in any sense of the word worth 
considering is very small," as Mr George Gissing bluntly put 
it. Mr Gissing was a pessimist, but his views on the popular 
vogue of literature are not the froth of deliberate despair. " The 
public which would feel no lack if book-printing ceased to- 
morrow, is enormous. Gather from all ends of the British 
Empire the men and women who purchase grave literature as a 
matter of course, who habitually seek it in public libraries, in 
short, who regard it as a necessity of life, and I am much 
mistaken if they could not comfortably assemble in the Albert 
Hall." Such was the mature verdict of a man who loved books 
and wrote books. 

Now, this may be regrettable, and it is doubtless one 
function of the Church to foster education and culture : we 
in Scotland, at any rate, can pride ourselves on the fact that 
the connection between the Church and education is honour- 
able and historic. But the immediate point is that, as things 
are, we have to reckon with a public, three-fifths of whom, 
within most of our congregations, are inaccessible to religious 
appeals or instructions which are either couched in bookish 
form or put in such a way as to involve literary allusions. 
Such people, on whatever social level they move, are generally 
far from unintelligent. Just as a love for literature is not 
necessarily equivalent to sympathy with the finer ideals of 
humanity, so this cheerful apathy towards books by no means 
disqualifies men and women for an appreciation of solid 



BOOKLESS RELIGION 165 

ideas or an understanding of human nature in its deeper 
interests and issues. Observation and experience are the 
university of the common man. He graduates there with 
degrees which entitle him to speak with considerable authority 
upon the laws and practice of life. And one task of the 
ordinary preacher or teacher in the Christian Church is simply 
the translation of ideas from his own semi-professional dialect 
into that of the semi-educated, or, if you choose to call them 
so, the illiterate. They will often be found surprisingly re- 
ceptive if the translation is properly done. They will not 
object to definite doctrine, provided that it is not flung at 
them from a desk. For here also is that old philosophy of 
Plato true, the philosophy that bubbles up, for example, in the 
Phcedrus that light, the light of genuine knowledge, breaks 
commonly from co-operation and friendly intercourse between 
man and man, rather than from books which cannot be cross- 
questioned. Such people can be reached. But we have no 
right to assume that our bookish categories and methods will 
give them the sound thought which they desire or need. 

In this preliminary sense of the term, bookless religion 
represents one phase or temper in our civilisation which will 
instantly be recognised by all who have to work, either in 
politics or in education, among the masses and the classes of 
this country. If it seems to be less carefully recognised by 
the Church, the fault is due, fundamentally, to the fact that 
her relation to the written Scriptures offers a special temptation 
to the exaggeration which is known as bookishness or intel- 
lectualism. Christianity has never been the religion of a book 
precisely as Judaism and Islam have been. At certain periods 
in her history the Church has indeed magnified the functions 
of Scripture to the pitch almost of an untruth, and there will 
always be sections, especially in the reformed Churches, which 
are disposed to regard the written Word with a slavish homage 
which is as unhistorical as it is illegitimate. Against such 
extremes the general sense of the Church, however, has main- 
tained a sound position on the whole. Even the preference 



166 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

for oral tradition which characterised Papias may be taken as 
a first phase of that healthy bookless religion which has ever 
accompanied the use of the Scriptures in the Church. The 
historical reasons which justified the Bishop of Hierapolis in 
his well-known practice I shall not discuss in this address. 
He has been often censured by his critics, from Eusebius 
downwards ; indeed, to judge from the casual extant fragments 
of his expositions, we are inclined if not entitled almost to 
reckon him as the first, though not the last, bishop who would 
have done better to talk less and read more. The living oral 
tradition on which he prided himself was far from being central 
or reliable at all points. It was a stream which carried many 
thin straws and dead leaves. Besides, his attitude towards 
it was hopelessly uncritical. His method was spoiled by his 
credulity. But he did feel, with many Christians, nearer to 
the current of faith in listening to reminiscences of the 
original disciples than in reading ; and this was due, partly 
to a distrust of the legal associations gathering round the 
lit era scripta, and partly owing to the fact that it seemed 
safer and more appropriate to propagate the worship and faith 
of Jesus in the communities of the Church than by recourse to 
written records of One who Himself wrote nothing. In any 
case, preaching existed and flourished before the New Testa- 
ment arose or was crystallised into the canon. As Dr C. R. 
Gregory eloquently puts it, in his recent volume on The Canon 
and Text of the New Testament (pp. 44-45), "The Christian 
Church is more than a book. Jesus was more than a word. 
Jesus, the Logos, the Word, was the Life, and the Church is a 
living society, a living fellowship. Our connection with Jesus, 
which reaches now over more than eighteen hundred years, 
does not rest upon the fact that He wrote something down, 
which one man and another, one after another, has read and 
believed until this very day. . . . Christianity began with the 
joining of heart to heart. Eye looked into eye. The living 
voice struck upon the living ear. And it is precisely such a 
uniting of personalities, such an action of man on man, that 



BOOKLESS RELIGION 167 

ever since Jesus spoke has effected the unceasing renewal of 
Christianity. Christianity has not grown to be what it is, 
has not maintained itself and enlarged itself, by reason of books 
being read no, not even by reason of the Bible's being read 
from generation to generation. The Christian, whether a 
clergyman or a layman, has sought with his heart after the 
hearts of his fellow-men. A mother has whispered the word 
to her child, a friend has spoken it in the ear of his friend, a 
preacher has proclaimed it to his hearers, and the child, the 
friend, the hearers have believed and become Christians. 
Christianity is an uninterrupted life." 

This is a vital conception which must be held tenaciously 
by all who realise the supreme religious value of Scripture for 
the work and worship of the Church. They, more than others, 
need this reminder of what the Scripture presupposes. Their 
temptation is to identify what is Biblical with what is Christian, 
and, by a recoil from the subordination of Scripture to the 
normal interests of the Church, to revert to a more or less 
doctrinaire view of the Bible and its contents. Against this 
tendency to stereotype revelation upon bookish lines there 
has been no lack of just protests from the ranks of the faithful. 
Many of these will occur at once to your minds. Their 
common standpoint has been the conviction that the Bible 
is always thrown out of focus when it is detached, by radical 
or by conservative, from the living fellowship of the Church, 
and that faith cannot be inspired or shaped wisely by Biblical 
appeals which fit texts together in a verbal mosaic. Jesus 
was not a scribe, and He has not chosen scribes to carry 
forward His faith. The Church did not make the New 
Testament, any more than the New Testament made the 
Church. Behind both lay the great redeeming facts and 
forces. These still operate, partly no doubt through the in- 
comparable and searching witness of Scripture, but never aside 
from that wider human experience, in relation to God's Spirit, 
which may be termed the bookless religion of the average 
individual. Faith, as the Ritschlians are never tired of 



168 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

teaching us, is reached and held, not by trying to throw 
ourselves back into the intellectual world of the apostles, but 
by yielding in our own lives, as they yielded in theirs, to the 
overpowering reality of God's revelation to man in Jesus 
Christ. The New Testament is the classical record of this 
divine revelation in history and experience, and of the human 
response to it from many sides. Hence the sound preaching 
of the New Testament must take into account this timeless 
and continuous soil of human life, into which the divine seed 
has to be dropped, studying its particular qualities and alive 
to the variety of its characteristic features. 

This aspect of " bookless religion," as the spontaneous, 
unformulated element in the Christian experience, may be 
corroborated by another definition which regards it as a sort 
of extra-mural preparation or predisposition for Christianity 
itself. Max M tiller, I recollect, employed the term in this 
connection, when he delivered the first series of the Gifford 
Lectures to us in the University of Glasgow. He laid great 
stress upon the struggle for eternal life through which the world 
and the individual pass, meaning apparently the aspirations 
and yearnings which are commonly classed under the title of 
Natural Religion. Without that struggle, he used to protest, 
" no religion, whatever its sacred books may be, will find in 
any human heart that soil in which alone it can strike root and 
on which alone it can grow and bear fruit. We must all have 
our bookless religion, if the sacred books, whatever these may 
be, are to find a safe and solid foundation within ourselves. No 
temple can stand without that foundation, and it is because 
that foundation is so often neglected that the walls of the 
temple become unsafe, and threaten to fall." This is, of 
course, an old idea as old as Paul's address to the Athenians : 
" What ye worship in ignorance, this set I forth to you." The 
varied moral instincts which grow up in the social context of 
our day, the special traditions and psychological climates, have 
all to be estimated carefully, if faith's appeal is to succeed. 
This " bookless religion," more or less unconscious of its needs, 



BOOKLESS RELIGION 169 

predisposes some to receive the fuller truth of Christ, and to 
root that truth in the soil of their own experience. Deep calls 
to deep. The depth of the Biblical witness answers to the 
depth of these private feelings in the extra-mural life. 

Now, all this bears upon our preaching and teaching with 
a force that is not always valued at its due. For no religious 
propaganda which is mainly made up out of the letter of the 
Bible and of books about the Bible will be effective in the 
best sense of the term. That rollicking and saintly Irishman, 
Father Dolling, once remarked that the Oxford Movement, 
for all its excellence, suffered from being "made up out of 
books." Dolling was no theologian ; but he was deeply 
read in certain volumes of human nature which were sealed 
books to men like Newman and Keble, and his apparently 
superficial criticism carries a truth whose significance applies 
widely to religious efforts. What Dolling felt was the 
" academic " taint. All great religious movements have been 
accompanied by a serious zest for sound learning and instruc- 
tion ; but to propagate religion among the extra-mural classes, 
a much more efficient vehicle must be found than any recourse, 
merely or mainly, to Biblical investigations, valuable as these 
are in their place. One condition of progress in such matters 
must be the power of speaking in the dialect of the market- 
place, as well as of the study, the frank recognition of 
" bookless religion," i.e. of the unformulated, undogmatic, 
untechnical religious feeling or, if you will, religious 
capacity which lies latent in human nature, and which 
demands more than severely intellectual methods if it is to 
be reached and won for the definite, saving gospel of the 
Spirit in Jesus Christ. The average religious consciousness 
is far more elusive and versatile and human than is dreamt 
of in the philosophy of the academic or doctrinaire spirit. 
Abstract discussions leave it only puzzled, and that sense of 
bewilderment condemns the preacher. The bookless man 
of religion occupies the seat of the unlearned. If he does 
not understand what the preacher is saying, it will not do 



170 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

for the latter to shift all the blame from his own shoulders. 
What Paul told the enthusiast at Corinth applies equally 
to the modern pulpit devotee of the academic spirit. He, 
after all, is responsible for the failure to understand the message. 
While it is one duty of the Christian minister to realise 
this principle by safeguarding himself against any intrusion of 
the academic spirit into the ordinary statement of the Church's 
faith, yet, in two other ways, the just needs of this "bookless 
religion" have to be satisfied, especially by ourselves in 
Scotland. One is a wise and reverent enrichment of our 
worship, which refuses to believe that simplicity is equivalent 
to bareness. I merely note this and pass on to the other, which 
is a habit of developing the conception and practice of fellow- 
ship in the church. A congregation is not an audience. It is 
not a fortuitous concourse of human atoms drawn together 
weekly by curiosity or admiration. Worship must not be 
degraded to the level of attendance at a lecture or a concert. 
The common activities and interests of the Church as a brother- 
hood must be promoted, if the full requirements of human 
nature are to be satisfied in the religious sphere, for it is there, 
as nowhere else, by co-operation for common ends, that 
Christianity can be learnt in its due range. " If we wish to 
become exact and fully furnished in any subject of teaching 
which is diversified and complicated, we must consult the 
living man and listen to his living voice. The general principles 
of any study you may learn at home by books : but the detail, 
the colour, the tone, the air, the life which makes it live in us, 
you must catch all these from those in whom it lives already." 
These words of Newman were meant for university life, but 
they can be applied directly to our present subject. They 
illustrate the cardinal principle for which I am contending 
here, that the Christian religion in practice is not a Levitical 
reproduction of first or second century ideas, but a spontaneous 
growth, which, however nourished and guided by the classical 
traditions and scriptures of the past, catches its full life 
from the common fellowship, the social responsibilities, the 



BOOKLESS RELIGION 171 

mutual enterprise and self-sacrifice, which throb within the 
vital intercourse of contemporary faith. 

The fact is, once this principle of " bookless religion " is 
recognised, its ramifications disclose themselves in all direc- 
tions. It is a factor which we find operating in many spheres. 
One of the really hopeful signs in recent Biblical criticism has 
been a truer appreciation of it in dealing with the early Chris- 
tian documents. Here, as in the newer movements of research 
into Greek and Roman religion, the ultra-literary bias is being 
corrected, and more allowance made for the existence of a 
normal, popular, voiceless religion within the early Churches 
than was common in the criticism of last century, when, for 
example, a dogmatic system of so-called " Paulinism " was 
tacitly assumed by many to sum up the central current of 
the primitive faith. On this aspect of the problem I have 
not time to dwell at present. But I should like to add one 
word upon a cognate subject in which the recognition of 
"bookless religion" has a real significance; and that is the 
modern passion for generalising, from statistics and schedules, 
upon the quality or the spread of personal religion. Evidence 
of this kind, we ought to bear in mind, is extremely difficult 
to secure. It is not often gained by dredging even the litera- 
ture of religious autobiography, for the perennial question of 
the historian arises, How far is any writer a true exponent of 
his age or even of his circle ? We can get literature for our 
own age, or for a past age. But is it representative, and, if 
so, to what extent ? As a rule, one will do well to entertain 
a wholesome scepticism of conclusions based upon induction 
from purely literary sources. The eccentric or the exceptional 
finds voice more readily than the normal. The latter does not 
pass into utterance so directly. The divorce court and the novel 
afford no clue to the number of happy marriages in a country ! 
Besides, in literature, as in life, the most vocal is not always 
the most dominant; it is one thing to be visible, another 
thing to be vital. There is a bookless religion whose presence 
in the genuine, general life of the age vitiates many neat and 



172 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

sure estimates of the period which are drawn mainly if not 
entirely from the delusive evidence of contemporary writings 
delusive because it is partial or fragmentary. 

Finally, such facts and factors as we have been reviewing 
converge upon our conception of what the Christian ministry 
is designed to be and to do. A trained ministry has usually 
been at least the ideal of the Scottish Churches, on the 
excellent principle that vital Christianity suffers whenever the 
religious consciousness is allowed to fall apart from the 
general intellectual advance of the age. Against such an 
ideal there is no law. We assume it as an axiom of our 
discipline. But the very glory of our training brings its own 
temptations. That training for about eight years tends to 
pre-occupy our mind with books. Biblical learning is, during 
our college course, the be-all and end-all. And its danger is 
intellectualism or bookishness. Some students, unfortunately, 
need no inoculation against the malady. Others have the 
sense to protect themselves, by clinical work in missions, 
against this pestilence of the academic spirit. But even the 
most wary may be none the worse of a gentle reminder that 
the people for whom he is responsible do not live in a world 
of documents alone, even of Biblical documents, that neat 
arrangements of texts will not fathom the depths of human 
need, and that, if the Church is to discharge her full debt to 
the barbarian as well as to the Greek, to the unlettered and 
unliterary class as well as to the reading public, she must 
present her faith in ways free from needlessly technical phrase- 
ology and preach the saving word without suggesting the 
bondage of an unelastic text. Men are not " dumb, driven 
cattle." They will not be driven, by the strong rods of argu- 
ment or of mere authority, into any pen of conviction. Even 
when they may be thus forced to yield some intellectual assent, 
or at any rate to silence any outward protest, they remain 
"of the same opinion still." Neither the theologian nor the 
evangelist wins a success worth mentioning by such argu- 
mentative processes of appeal. And, as a matter of fact, in 



BOOKLESS RELIGION 173 

this age of journalism, when the practical principles of any 
subject are scattered far and wide, the professional theologian 
no longer possesses an unchallenged monopoly. Sooner or 
later, no doubt, the deciding factors will be those of sure, first- 
hand experts, who have made it their business to know the 
subject in its ultimate principles. But the trend of modern 
religious thought is controlled by considerations which too 
often escape the abstruse thinker in theology, considerations 
which appeal powerfully to ordinary, people because their 
practical experience affords a ready verification of such pre- 
judices or instincts. In a word, the bookless religion of our 
day furnishes one of the conditions under which our work has 
to be done. Failure to allow for it adequately is responsible, 
I am afraid, for much of the inefficiency of our work as theo- 
logians and preachers. We take more trouble to know the 
Word than to master the conditions under which alone we can 
make it audible. The minds we address are pre-occupied. 
We ought to know what they are thinking and how they are 
thinking. This does not imply that their methods and aims 
of thought in religion are invariably accurate. Far from it. 
But we cannot hope to awaken a true conception of faith, or 
to direct the conscience aright, unless we are prepared, first of 
all, to get access to the life as it lies before us. " It would 
be almost incredible," says Frank Osbaldistone in Rob Roy, 
" to tell the rapidity of Miss Vernon's progress in knowledge ; 
and it was still more extraordinary, when her stock of mental 
acquisitions from books was compared with her total ignorance 
of actual life. It seemed as if she saw and knew everything 
except what passed in the world around her." This combina- 
tion probably made Di Vernon irresistibly fascinating as a 
talker. But while knowledge of books and ignorance of the 
bookless world are accomplishments which together may pro- 
duce a charming angel in the house, I am perfectly certain that 
they will turn out an extremely ineffective angel of the Lord. 

JAMES MOFFATT. 

BROUGHTY FERRY, N.B. 



EVANGELICAL BARGAINING. 
JOHN PAGE HOPPS. 

THE modern movement in favour of a frank dealing with the 
Bible and Evangelical Theology has reached the National 
Council of Evangelical Free Churches, which, we are glad to 
hear, has decided to enter the arena with a series of books on 
" Christian Faith and Doctrine." The series is to be edited by 
the Rev. F. B. Meyer, and the writers include Dr R. F. 
Horton, Professor Peake, Principal Adeney, the Rev. J. 
Scott Lidgett and others. The first of the series, just out, is 
by Dr J. Monro Gibson, and is on the crucial subject of The 
Inspiration and Authority of Holy Scripture. 

It is pretty evident that the book has been forced into 
existence by the pressure of a certain " distress" which is very 
widespread, and which is confessed here by such ominous 
phrases as " Multitudes of our teachers and preachers, truly 
religious men, are crying out, ' Would God I had a definite 
creed for my mind, and a positive gospel to preach 1 " " There 
were never so many, in all the history of the Church, crying 
out, ' Where am I ? ' as there are to-day." " There are 
multitudes of good, earnest souls who do love the light, but 
have been forced into unbelief by the cruel demand that they 
must accept every word of the Bible as coming direct from 
God, or reject the whole." 

Hence this book, for which Dr Forsyth writes a piquant 
introduction, in which he strives to call off the men of the 
" Higher Criticism," and pleads for the calling in of critics 
whom he quaintly names " the capable middle-men," who are 

174 



EVANGELICAL BARGAINING 175 

to act as mediators " between the learned and the public." It is 
a curious revelation as to the present position. " The army of 
research," he says, " is sufficiently well recruited. Its van has 
been going faster than the main body can follow, and becom- 
ing detached from its evangelical base " : so he proposes a 
quickened pace from the rear, and a halting or harking back of 
the van, in order to link up the old evangelical position with 
the new scholarly one, and thus secure rest for perturbed 
spirits ; and this book of Dr Gibson's is one of the links, and 
its writer is certified, by Dr Forsyth, as a " capable middle- 
man " a man who has to stand between the world of modern 
knowledge, on the one hand, and the world of traditional 
religion on the other, and mediate between them. " The 
premises are being rebuilt," he says, " but the business must 
be carried on." Was there ever such a naive and illuminating 
confession ? 

That is the position, then, to-day the middle-man 
carries on the business, pending entire reconstruction ; and he 
does it for the Bible in this book. One therefore expects a 
good deal of bargaining and contriving ; a good deal, too, of 
accommodation and management ; and this is what we get, 
with only a show of finality, but a show of finality which is 
made the most of. In fact, it is the part of "the capable 
middle-man " to persuade the customers that there is a great 
change, and yet that it all comes to the same thing. 

In a book of compromise, involving movement in a once 
tabooed direction, we might have expected a suitable modesty 
and a genial reference to the old advance guard ; but Dr 
Gibson fails us here. Curiously enough, though himself only 
coming in with the tide, he blames those who floated in long 
ago and are moored. One might have thought that he would 
have a good word, perhaps even a word of gratitude, for those 
who, under great difficulties, long ago showed the way into 
the harbour ; but there is, instead, a good deal of open or 
implied rebuke. 

Thus, Dr Martineau, who, as Dr Gibson says, in his Seat 



176 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of Authority, "finds the ultimate seat of authority in the voice 
of God as responded to by the human heart and conscience," is 
said to "assume a position which practically sets aside as 
worthless the witness of prophets and apostles, and the ac- 
cumulated experience and witness of the Church." Does Dr 
Gibson deliberately regard that as fair ? 

But, as to Bible critics generally, he is unfair if they go 
an inch farther than himself. Of these he says : " They have 
their difficulties about miracles, about the future life, about 
the course of nature and the providence of God ; and, because 
their Christian friends cannot clear these all up to them in 
the space of ten minutes or half an hour, they will not listen 
to anything our Lord and Master may say." That may be 
excused as pulpit emotion or pulpit rhetoric (and there is a 
good deal of both in this book), but it will not bear reflection. 
Of another, who finds that he has been deceived about the 
infallibility of the Bible, he says : " So he gives up the Bible 
because it is not what he thought it to be, and then, having 
given up the Bible, he concludes as a matter of course that 
he must give up Christ." What nonsense ! Might it not 
more naturally occur to this honest and enlightened person 
to rally to Christ more resolutely, and to let the Old Testament 
atrocities go ? 

But Dr Gibson now and then plays the part of the 
" capable middle-man " excellently well, by pointing out to 
the hesitator that, after all, dark purple is very much like 
light brown. Thus, towards the end of his bargaining, he 
says : " How is it that the Bible of the simplest saints will 
be well worn and thumbed, perhaps actually torn, at the 
Psalms and in Gospels, and the page quite clean in Leviticus 
and Esther ? It is because they are higher critics. And their 
criticism is perfectly just"; and he adds: "Whatever does 
not stand in times like these is better gone " ; and he also 
adds, almost as his last words, as though to clinch a bargain : 
" Though the old theory was that the Bible was all equally 
inspired * from cover to cover,' as the phrase is, it was only 



EVANGELICAL BARGAINING 177 

a theoretical, not a practical, belief. Even the most stalwart 
defenders of the theory have not acted on it ; or, if the 
attempt was made, as in the writer's case, it was soon given 
over as impracticable. For, however resolutely one may set 
himself to go through the whole Bible chapter by chapter, 
there are considerable portions of it which to the ordinary 
reader are a hopeless puzzle." 

But, true to his role as " middle-man," he turns to the 
advanced critic and says : " In regard to the divine revelation, 
there can surely be no place for the fault-finding critic. Shall 
anyone find fault with 'the light of the knowledge of the 
glory of God'?" an almost comical begging of the question 
which no experienced commercial " middle-man " would think 
plausible. 

Dr Gibson's method is a very simple one. He deals with 
the Bible very much as a bold salesman might deal with a 
roll of cloth, moth-eaten here and there. He proposes to 
take what he calls "the telescopic," not "the microscopic" 
view. His argument is, " It is all right on the whole." He 
treats the book as one might treat Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 
concentrating attention upon its general unity, its underlying 
history, and its philosophy of life, with an expert's hiding of 
its gross animalism, its wicked stories, and its occasional 
blasphemy. He may not know it, but he does it ; and this 
refuge, of the view on the whole, with a large placing of 
unpleasant things in the background, is practically Dr Gibson's 
case. By means of it he contrives, with a good deal of pulpit 
rhetoric, to find a certain "progressive revelation" in the 
Bible. Of course, he quotes the Epistle to the Hebrews : 
" God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in 
time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these days 
spoken unto us by his Son." What, then, are we to under- 
stand by God speaking to the prophets ? The answer is that 
God called " an elect nation " "to receive and convey to the 
world His message of salvation," and then "individual men 

selected and empowered by the agency of His Spirit to make 
Voi, VII. No. 1. 12 



178 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the message articulate the witness of all converging on Him 
who is the Word of God, and by whose sacrifice alone the 
world can be redeemed." 

This is Dr Gibson's case. The Gospel message, "dimly 
foreshadowed, perhaps, in the story of the Fall," grew " clearer 
and clearer as we come down the ages, till it blazes out in 
Christ." "See there, first," he cries, with another flash of 
pulpit fervour " see there, first, the long line of prophets, 
everyone of them with a light in his eye and a fire in his 
soul, as, with a forward pointing, he says: 'The Christ is 
coming, the Christ of God is coming." 1 And yet, after all, 
there is not one of these prophets who is concerned with any- 
thing but the social, political, and ethical problems and events 
of his own day 1 But, if all this is so, if all who went before 
Christ were God-guided witnesses to Him, how came it to 
pass that Christ Himself said, " All that came before me were 
thieves and robbers " ? The prophets were not, perhaps, dis- 
tinctly in His mind, but the assertion is a very sweeping one : 
if, indeed, He ever said it at all. 

But now, as to this claim that God chose the Jewish people 
" to receive and convey to the world His message of salvation," 
we must pause and think before we again admit this venerable 
theory. Again and again Dr Gibson hammers at it. He 
says, " The first fact we have to deal with is that of an elect 
and inspired people a nation singled out from other nations 
to receive God's special redemptive revelation and to give it 
to the world " ; and this nation, he does not hesitate to say, 
was specially distinguished for its "abiding consciousness of 
the immanence and transcendence of God," its "quenchless 
passion for righteousness," and its growth of "a lofty 
spirituality." It takes a good deal of emotion mixed with 
management to say this, and prove it in face of the history 
of this idolatrous and God-forsaking people, though much of 
what he attributes to the nation was true of some of its 
habitually rejected ethical and religious reformers whom we 
call "prophets." 



EVANGELICAL BARGAINING 179 

Dr Gibson contrasts the religion of the Hebrews with that 
of Greece and Rome, which, he says, was " * of the earth, 
earthy,' sadly stained all through by the evil imaginations 
of the heart of man." But is this less true of the Hebrews ? 
" God spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," says Dr Gibson ; 
" and think," he cries, " what He did for the heroes of the Old 
Testament ! Think what He did for Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob. Think what He did for Joseph and through Joseph. 
Think what he did for Moses and through Moses. Think 
what He did through Joshua and the Judges and the 
Kings." Is it all really good history, then ? But what of 
the heroic characters of even our own little island ? Has not 
God " done great things for us, whereof we are glad " ? and, 
if the story of our heroes and of our heroic days is less blended 
with assertions of God's championship, that may only show a 
more modest and more elevated thought of God ; for truly, 
the heroic characters of the Old Testament, or their chroniclers, 
imputed things to God which we have to contradict on His 
behalf. Dr Gibson says : " By a mighty hand and an out- 
stretched arm God did bring His people out of Egypt." And 
did not the men of Holland say that God with His mighty 
hand delivered them from the grasp of Spain? And 
Englishmen have said it of England too. But even one of 
the old Hebrew prophets rose above this provincialism when 
he said: "The God of the whole earth shall He be called." 
And Dr Gibson occasionally rises above it, as, for instance, 
when of the Scripture record he says quite frankly : "God 
was in it, of course, as He is in everything." This is 
an immense admission, and is an excellent example of the 
function of the " middle-man." After all, inspiration, and 
the guidance of God, and the leading of the Holy Spirit, 
are only matters of degree. 

It therefore follows, and Dr Gibson quite frankly admits 
it, that the various parts of the Bible are not at all on " the 
same level." Within his limits, he is as outspoken as any 
Unitarian in his repudiation of the old " evangelical " view that it 



180 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

is all alike infallible and literally true. The Bible, he says, is 
not one book, but sixty-six, and many things are doubtful as 
to their authors, for instance, and as to whether all of them 
ought to be included in the Canon of inspired books. There 
is the Book of Esther, for example ; and Dr Gibson often 
glances at Esther and shakes his head. It is true that Christ 
quotes the Old Testament, but " we have no means of knowing 
the mind of Christ or of His apostles as to the exact number 
of books to be included in the Bible." The Apocrypha is a 
part of the old Septuagint version, and Jesus " generally used " 
it, but " left no warning against treating the whole of it as 
authoritative " ; and yet " those who are acquainted with the 
Apocrypha will recognise what a relief it is to be free from 
the necessity of claiming special inspiration for all the books 
which it contains " ; and this is accompanied by many hints as 
to the relief now being felt when it is no longer necessary to 
claim equal inspiration for all parts of the Canon. 

The Bible, we are told, was not given to teach us history 
or science. We have " given that up " and are " willing to 
have the scope of Scripture teaching limited to the spiritual 
and the practical." " The entire history (of the Jews) from the 
entrance into Canaan down to the Captivity, a space of seven 
hundred years at least, comes to us, not only without any sign 
of a call or commission (to write the history), but without any 
means of finding out who the author was " ; and then we have 
the further suggestive remark that the literature of the world 
began with myth and legend. But a passage in Dr Gibson's 
naive little autobiography, with which he begins his book, 
throws the clearest light on his position, and, by implication, 
on the present position of the National Council of Evangelical 
Free Churches. He says : " I was brought up to believe that 
the whole fabric of our faith rested ultimately on the founda- 
tion of a book which, though written by many different authors, 
was yet from beginning to end not their work at all, but that 
of God. They were simply God's penmen, and what they 
wrote was at His dictation." Later on, he became perplexed, 



EVANGELICAL BARGAINING 181 

and found some help "in Kitto's books," but he had "an 
uncomfortable feeling that too much ingenuity had been needed, 
and that simple truth should scarcely require so very much 
special pleading." Then came what he calls the " sad experi- 
ence " of finding that " it was not all on the same level." Then 
he found relief in the notion that " the Bible was not itself the 
divine revelation, but the record of it," and in the further 
discovery of" the progressive nature of divine revelation." He 
confesses to having been at first strong in opposition to modern 
criticism, but he has come " out of the comparative darkness 
into better light." 

Thinking of men like Theodore Parker and Colenso, who 
went through the jungle before him, we cannot help being 
reminded of the story of a penitent old lady who, on her 
death-bed, said to her faithful old servant, " Ah, Sarah, I see 
I've been a wicked woman for many years," to which Sarah 
pathetically replied, " Lor, missus, we've known it all the 
while." 

So then, Dr Gibson, it will be perceived, has exceedingly 
interesting and elastic ideas about inspirations, and, if we 
venture to give a brief summary of his grading of them, we do 
so only as helping to carry on the business during the rebuild- 
ing of the premises, to use Dr Forsyth's remarkable phrase. 
Dr Gibson's grading of inspirations, then, comes out something 
like this : There is a broad sense in which we are all inspired. 
Then there are artists, poets, and musicians who are inspired 
in a higher or finer degree. Still higher, there is "spiritual 
inspiration," and this "again admits of degrees." Then, at 
last, we come to the inspiration of " those who were chosen of 
God to be the vehicles of that redemptive revelation which 
was to be the basis of fellowship with God through all suc- 
ceeding ages." All this would be acceptable enough if we 
turned the particular into a universal ; for the vital question 
is whether the revelation of God is one small chapter in the 
world's history or the whole of it. 

Amid all these difficulties, we are pathetically asked for 



182 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

" faith " ; but Dr Gibson has a beautifully childlike way of 
taking " faith " as meaning faith in his own particular explana- 
tions. He assures us that it is the inner vision which sees, 
and that it is this inner vision which is faith. In a sense that 
is quite true, but it was true for Luther and Newman, 
Channing and Spurgeon, just as it is true for R. J. Campbell 
and Munro Gibson, Wilberforce and Father Vaughan. Faith 
must be free, as Dr Gibson himself tells us, allowing a large 
margin for the personal equation, and going so far as to tell 
us that inspiration was purposely largely diluted with the 
human. If it had come upon us " with the impact of super- 
human power, would not human freedom be abolished ? " And 
yet he says : " Why should it be thought a thing incredible 
that God should lay upon us the responsibility of recognising 
His Gospel as it shines forth in the pages of the Bible ? " 
Well, but is it not quite as fully open to us to ask : "Why 
should it be thought a thing incredible that God should 
endow us with the sacred right to find an unholy spirit in 
certain pages of the Bible ? " 

Dr Gibson's answer to all this seems to be that we ought 
to accept the whole Bible as specially inspired, "because 
Christ is in it " ; and he certainly says, plainly enough, that 
" we may rest assured that if a man truly believes in Christ, 
he will not fail to rise to a worthy faith in the inspiration of 
the Scriptures." That is a very vague and elastic remark. 
" A worthy faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures " may 
mean such a faith in the Scriptures as they deserve ; and 
the sense of the whole might, to some honest readers, actually 
mean this : We may rest assured that in proportion as a man 
truly believes in Christ, he will be less inclined to believe 
in the special inspiration of many portions of the Old Testa- 
ment. Dr Gibson himself gives us specimens of these un- 
acceptable portions of "the Holy Scriptures" (though still, 
in some way, holding by their inspiration) ; but there are 
hundreds of them. They are well known, and we need not 
recite them ; but there is one which we cannot pass, because 



EVANGELICAL BARGAINING 183 

it illustrates how familiarity can breed devotion, and because 
it gives us a typical specimen of Dr Gibson's notion of a 
" contrast." 

" We may compare the Song of Moses with the almost 
contemporary hymn of the poet Pentaur, who is sometimes 
spoken of as the Homer of Egypt. . . . The one is full of 
man and his praises, while the other makes nothing of man 
and everything of God. The first three verses sufficiently 
indicate the tenor of the whole : ' I will sing unto the 
Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously : the horse and his 
rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength 
and song, and He is become my salvation. This is my God, 
and I will praise Him; my father's God, and I will exalt 
Him. The Lord is a man of war : the Lord is His name.' 

" Such is the strain of the Hebrew epic ; whereas, in the 
Egyptian one, the praises of Pharaoh are sung throughout, and 
when any god of Egypt is referred to, it is in some such 
fashion as this : 6 1 (Pharaoh) have built for thee Propyloea, 
wonderful works of stone ; I have raised to thee masts for all 
time ; I have conveyed the obelisks for thee from the island 
of Elephantine. It was I who had brought for thee the 
everlasting stone, who caused the ships to go for thee on the 
sea, to bring thee the products of foreign nations. Where has 
it been told that such a thing was done at any other time ? ' 
Comment," says Dr Gibson, " is needless on the contrast." 
Quite needless, but, if we made any comment, it would be 
strongly in favour of the Egyptian record over the Hebrew 
one. Both are largely inspired by boasting, but Pharaoh 
boasts of good things done in building and commerce, whereas 
the Hebrew boasts in a God who threw people into the sea, 
and who is " a man of war " : better is it to praise a useful man 
than a merciless God. It is curious to note that, all through, 
Dr Gibson's case. seems to be that a record is inspired if it 
refers to God, no matter what it says of Him. It is an old 
superstition, and anything but a lovely one. 

Impelled by this superstition, Dr Gibson might be com- 



184 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

pelled to include the Koran as a part of " The Holy Scrip- 
tures," but, being an Englishman, he is restrained by a 
patriotic claiming for his book the guarantee of the Holy 
Spirit, and he appears to claim the Holy Spirit for his inter- 
pretation of it. Of course he is aware that this is rather thin 
ice, but he does not falter. Of course, also, he is aware that 
there is a great and venerable claimant who holds that to him 
has been entrusted the revelation, as custodian and interpreter ; 
but he mentions that only to repudiate it ; and yet, in the 
absence of such a divinely appointed custodian and interpreter, 
there is nothing left but private judgment, with a resolute 
ruling out of all condemnation on account of adverse opinion. 
But Dr Gibson is very " capable," and confidently claims the 
Holy Spirit's guidance for his particular view ; and virtually 
denies the guidance of the Holy Spirit to all who do not 
accept that view. That is a bold stroke, in view of the fact 
that he has only just come within sight of it, that he is but 
coming in with the tide, and has by no means reached 
the pier. 

Is this reliance upon the Holy Spirit anything more than 
reliance upon the God-given sense of what is true and good 
a sense which has always varied, and must always vary, in its 
behests, in harmony with the stage of spiritual sensitiveness 
attained? Dr Gibson mentions Newman's Apologia. May 
we commend to him a curious parallel to his own following 
of the Holy Spirit's guidance. That following has led him to 
the occupation of a " capable middle-man," in order to recon- 
cile the stolid Nonconformist to the conclusion that the Bible 
is not all equally inspired ; but it led Newman into the Roman 
Catholic Church for the saving of his soul ; and, so far as we 
can see, Newman agonised more than he in his anxiety to be 
guided aright. Here are a few expressions taken from that 
wonderful and touching story of Newman's laborious pilgrim- 
age: "Pray believe that I am encompassed with responsi- 
bilities so great and so various as utterly to overcome me, 
unless I have mercy from Him who, all through my life, 



EVANGELICAL BARGAINING 185 

has sustained and guided me, and to whom I can now submit 
myself." 

" It suggests to me the traces of a Providential Hand." 
" I am a Catholic by virtue of my believing in God." 
" The question simply turns on the nature of the promise 
of the Spirit made to the Church." 

It is certainly interesting to turn from these ardent assur- 
ances within the pale, to Dr Gibson's equally ardent assurances 
in the open (unless, indeed, the " National Council of Evan- 
gelical Free Churches " is also a pale). " Verily," he says, 
"we cannot do without something above the written word, 
without the presence and guidance of the Spirit of Him who 
spake to the fathers by the prophets. There must be present 
inspiration to verify for us, and to enable us to make use of, 
the inspiration that is past. Do we not believe in the Holy 
Ghost?" "There is the final verification. There is the 
ultimate authority the Holy Spirit of God and of His Son 
Jesus Christ speaking, in the sacred Scriptures especially, to 
the consciences and hearts of those who are of the truth." 
But who are " of the truth " ? Are they only " of the truth " 
who agree with Dr Gibson ? It looks like it. 

Belief in endorsement by the "Holy Ghost" is an old 
source of trouble, and has always been the cause of much 
over-belief and excessive assertion. And yet there is a truth 
in it ; but it is a truth which puts Newman and Gibson side 
by side, and condemns neither ; and this truth will be found 
in a more modern, a more reasonable, and a more reverent 
conception of God than that which presents Him as a sort of 
exaggerated human being, selecting this man and that ; doing 
this and that, as He chooses, and usually as the champion of 
one side ; inspiring David and ignoring Socrates ; guiding 
Monro Gibson aright to Farringdon Street, and letting your 
anxious, trusting Newman grope his way to Rome alone. 
The truth is, that there is a God-side to every one of us, and 
that it is on this side of the spirit-self that conscience and the 
sense of duty operate ; so that a man is led by God when 



186 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

he is seeking the light, longing for truth, and hungering and 
thirsting for righteousness, though these may lead two men 
to opposite conclusions. 

In the light of this view of divine guidance, we can grant 
to Dr Gibson that every part of the Bible may be inspired in 
its degree. It is quite possible that the writers of the psalms 
which treat God as a fighting champion of the Jews, and a 
ruthless fighter too, were moved by zeal for God, and even 
by a rough kind of zeal for righteousness, as they understood 
it, and were to that extent inspired by the God in them : 
though it would often be difficult to call it inspiration by the 
"Holy "Spirit. 

This view of inspiration may appear to be paradoxical, but 
it does not seem possible to escape from it except by postulat- 
ing a humanly arbitrary God, and attributing to some men 
the power to discover that they are His chosen ones and 
not much good has come of that ! Newman's Apologia gives 
many a curious glimpse of this. In one place he suggests 
that it is one's duty "to throw oneself generously into that 
form of religion which is providentially put before one," and 
says boldly, " I have always contended that it mattered not 
where a man began, so that he began on what came to hand 
and in faith ; and that anything might become a divine 
method of truth." The rest is "divine guidance." 

But beneath this fencing with the notion of guidance by 
the Holy Spirit there is a serious fact which admits of no 
evading that we are all engaged in a great act of separation, 
and oscillating between Freedom and Authority, Fact and 
Assertion, Reason and Rome ; and Newman's struggle was 
precisely what Gibson's is, but in different directions. Newman 
said, " The spirit of lawlessness came in with the Reformation, 
and Liberalism is its offspring " ; and by " Liberalism " he meant 
pretty much what Dr Gibson has to bargain with as "The 
Higher Criticism." " There are but two alternatives," said 
Newman, " the way to Rome, and the way to Atheism : 
Anglicanism is the halfway house on the one side, and Liberal- 



EVANGELICAL BARGAINING 187 

ism is the halfway house on the other " ; and he ought to have 
known, for he was sure that all his life he had been " divinely 
guided." He predicted that "the stern encounter" would 
come, " when the two real and living principles, simple, entire, 
and consistent . . . rush upon each other, contending, not for 
names and words, or half- views, but for elementary notions and 
distinctive moral characters'*: and he adds a passage which, 
though a trifle scornful, amusingly illustrates the present 
balancing attitude of the men whom Dr Gibson represents : 
" In the present day, mistiness is the mother of wisdom. A 
man who can set down half a dozen general propositions, 
which escape from destroying one another only by being diluted 
into truisms ; who can hold the balance between opposites so 
skilfully as to do without fulcrum or beam ; who never enunci- 
ates a truth without guarding himself against being supposed 
to exclude the contradictory . . . this is what the Church is 
said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, 
well-judging persons, to guide it through the channel of No- 
meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and No ! " 

Dr Gibson concludes with a pretty little story which will 
serve our purpose just as well as his : "I think of my little 
grandchild of eighteen months, who, having been taught by 
her father to blow out first a match and then a candle, made 
her next attempt on the orb of day, on an afternoon with just 
enough fog to make it possible for her to look straight at its 
great red ball. The dear child tried it again and again and 
again. And the sun is shining yet." 

Yes, " God's in the heavens," and He lights us all. But 
the trouble is that we are always being tempted to mistake 
our poor little candles for His " marvellous light." 

JOHN PAGE HOPPS. 



DISCUSSIONS 

N.B. The contributions under this heading refer to matters previously 
treated in the "Hibbert Journal." Reviews of books are not open 
to discussion. Criticism of any article will, as a rule, be limited to a 
single issue of the Journal. The discussion ends with a reply from 
the original writer. Ed. 

IS CIVILISATION IN DANGER? 

(Hibbert Journal, July 1908, p. 729.) 

THE somewhat startling title of the second article in the July issue of 
the Hibbert Journal could not fail to draw attention to it. The article 
itself, readable as it is, proves in effect disappointing. So much is assumed, 
so little proved. 

To take a few points briefly. It is assumed that there is a rapid decay 
of that liberal thought and finer feeling which constitute what is called 
" Culture," and that such decay is due partly to increasing specialisation 
in work, which cramps the intellect and quenches all aspiration, and partly 
to the passion for uniformity which " is assailing not only superiority of 
fortune and position, but every kind of superiority whatsoever." For both 
these tendencies, which ought to be much more carefully distinguished 
than is here the case, M. Gerard makes the Democracy responsible. He 
fears that "with the disappearance of social inequalities individual 
initiative will come to an end." For, in his judgment, Democracy is the 
enemy of Genius, which is " essentially anti-democratic." Education 
itself, he thinks, is becoming part of the machinery by which wealth is to 
be brought within the reach of all alike, and for all alike that is becoming 
the one goal of effort. In a word, he dreads that for the leisured thought 
by which life is enlarged and enriched, for the arts by which it is ennobled 
and refined, there will presently be no demand and no scope. And, since 
the foe is Democracy, and since the failure of the aristocracy of wealth and 
privilege is conspicuous, appeal is made to such " men of letters, artists, and 
women " as may have within them the spirit of genuine Culture, to band 
themselves together " in opposition to that universal mediocrity by which 
our civilisation is threatened " : to form themselves, in fact, into an 
aristocracy "of intellect, of feeling, and of manners." 

Surely there is much here open to question. 

That there is a note of vulgarity, a lack of distinction, in the general 

188 



DISCUSSIONS 189 

demeanour of the average citizen Frenchman, Englishman, or German is 
only too true. Our ideals for work, for recreation, and even for study are 
not very lofty, and many seem to have no ideals at all. But were things 
any better a generation ago ? I trow not ; unless, indeed, we compare the 
cultivated few of a previous age with the general mass of the population 
to-day, which is apparently the method of this article. What is indis- 
putable is, that the general mixing of classes, which is the outcome of 
democratic progress, has made sensitive people feel more keenly than before 
how low is the standard of our attainment as a people. But the 
Democracy, only now beginning to assert itself, must not be made wholly 
responsible for deficiencies which are, partly at least, the outcome of 
aristocratic rule ; and the remedy will hardly be found by deliberately 
instituting a new aristocracy of superior persons. Indeed, it strikes one as 
rather odd, that a gentleman whose ideal of culture is expressed in the 
motto " nihil humanum a me alienum puto" and who finds the chief 
obstacle to the realisation of his ideal in the specialising tendencies of 
modern work, should take alarm at the progress of Democracy. For, in 
the first place, it is by no means certain that the real trend of practical 
life is towards the emphasising of such injurious specialising : Mr H. G. 
Wells gives some good reasons for thinking otherwise. And, in the next 
place, if specialisation be a danger for the future, as it undoubtedly is in 
some respects a present evil, is not the Democracy, or at all events the 
Socialists, who are the advanced wing, up in arms against it? The 
clamour of the labouring man for shorter hours, if not consciously a 
demand for nobler training, is at all events a plea for larger opportunity, 
for the possibility of doing or hearing or seeing something outside the 
routine of his monotonous day^s work. 

Monotony, let us note, is what M. Gerard especially dreads " the 
monotony of a universal mediocrity," which is to result from " democratic 
pressure on the one hand and material progress on the other."" He laments 
that machinery is turning out, for the use of poor people, houses, clothing, 
furniture, amusements, and even education, after the very same patterns 
in vogue among the wealthy, observing with dismay that the middle and 
lower classes show no more taste or originality than their social superiors. 
He draws in grey tints a depressing picture of a London suburb, and finds 
in the dulness of the streets sad evidence that the occupants of these 
dwellings " are absolutely impervious to every idea and to the highest type 
of culture. 1 " Let us pity these people indeed, if, as is so naively assumed, 
none of them ever rise in spirit above their surroundings. But what about 
Grosvenor Square or Grosvenor Place, or the uninspiring exterior of 
Buckingham Palace ? Must the levelling Democrats take the blame for 
the lack of initiative there ? 

But below these secondary causes of decay, the writer discerns a deeper 
cause, which is moral the love of money. " Utilitarian interests are on 
the eve of causing all that lies beyond them to be forgotten." And here 
comes in the gist of his argument. While, "in material respects, the 



190 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

levelling of society is especially evident in the slow ascent of the masses 
to better conditions " (which, as it would appear, he grudgingly allows), " in 
moral and intellectual respects, on the contrary, it is being realised by the 
lowering of the elite to a uniform level with the rest." But who are the 
elite thus degraded ? Either they must be individuals highly placed who 
never utilised their wealth and leisure to cultivate higher interests, or else 
we must infer that men of high birth and breeding succumb as easily to 
vulgar influences as baser folk. What, then, comes of his appeal to the 
better sort to form themselves into a brotherhood, an aristocracy of all 
the virtues, to rescue a perishing civilisation ? Does not the very sugges- 
tion imply a misapprehension of the way in which intellect and merit 
exalt and purify the life of Man ? Good men and wise hitherto have 
uplifted and ennobled their fellows, not by electing themselves to high 
office as the legitimate leaders of the nation, but by giving freely of the 
spiritual treasures they possessed without respect to persons or classes. 
When they are concerned to assume a privileged position and to exercise 
authority, they begin to lose something of their spiritual power. That is 
the history of churches and schools of art the world over. Yet something 
of this sort is implied in M. Gerard's appeal, since his call to the men of 
mind and character to champion " the prerogatives of talent and merit " 
is bound up with, nay, made subordinate to, his contention that social 
inequalities are a necessary condition of civilisation, that we must have an 
aristocracy. I would submit, on the contrary, that, attractive as the idea 
is, presented in abstract terms, an aristocracy of the most excellent persons, 
deliberately established and formed into a privileged class, would prove in 
practice a fiasco. They would inevitably degenerate into a selfish clique. 
Such, indeed, has been the actual experience of mankind. Pharisaism is a 
typical instance, beginning, as it did, in an honest and whole-hearted zeal 
for righteousness. But every aristocracy, however established, has claimed 
to be in some sense the exponent of virtue and refinement. Its members 
must always be " gentlemen " ; and the tradition of gentility, where pre- 
served in its purity, is no ignoble thing. But (teste M. Gerard) it is fast 
disappearing. And the reason is not far to seek. It has been a selfish 
tradition. These worthy and refined gentlefolk have not shared their 
treasure with their fellow-citizens of a lower social grade, but have kept 
them at armVlength as "common people." And now the nemesis has 
come upon the gentlemen, in that those whom they despised are pushing 
forward, and that their lack of good breeding is felt as painful. 

I submit, then, that it is futile to deplore the passing away of social 
distinctions. The levelling process will go farther, whether we will or 
no. The masses will not ask the best people always to take the first place, 
and will probably, following the example of the higher classes, put some of 
them down at the bottom. But if, indeed, as the Scriptures suggest to us, 
spiritual excellence works as a leaven, permeating the social body, they will 
be able to work even there quite effectively, as, in fact, some of them are 
working now. The motto of true genius in art and literature, as well 



DISCUSSIONS 191 

as in morals and religion, has ever been : " I am among you as he that 
serveth." 

Two very important considerations which, if duly weighed, must have 
greatly modified his judgments, are by the writer of this paper most 
strangely ignored. The one is the fact that, quite apart from the not too 
generous help given by those in high place, there has always been a leaven 
of righteousness, and even of refinement, working among the masses, 
unobserved because unpretentious, but none the less effective for good. 
The other (the outcome of this) is the fact that the aristocracy of 
enlightened and right-minded persons, to whom as a body actually existing 
M. Gerard appeals, is itself constantly recruited from below. 

WILLIAM C. STEWART. 
KENSINGTON. 



SCIENCE AND THE PURPOSE OF LIFE. 

(Hibbert Journal, July 1908, p. 743.) 

DR NANSEN writes : " We see now that really nothing we behold has a 
beginning or an end, and that therefore the only logical view of the 
Universe, based upon our own experience, is that it is infinite in time and 
space. It always has existed, and will go on for ever. It has no limits, 
but extends infinitely in all directions."" But can that view of the Universe 
be " logical " which is inconceivable and self-contradictory. That the 
Universe has never had a beginning and will never have an end is as 
inconceivable and self-contradictory, as it is inconceivable and self-contra- 
dictory that it had a beginning and will have an end, as Kant showed long 
ago in his first Antinomy. " Illimitable space " and the " star-spangled 
heavens " are known to us only as phenomena. What they are apart from 
ourselves, or if they exist apart from ourselves, we do not know. If, 
however, " science " be right, the question is not merely, What is the 
purpose of life ? but, What is the purpose of the Universe ? Apparently it 
exists only that at stated intervals there should be " glorious collisions " 
collisions which, however " glorious," there will be no one to observe in the 
case of our solar system, as, long ere it takes part in a "collision," all 
sentient life will have disappeared, and have been " wiped out as a dream 
of the past." To hold that the Universe has slowly evolved, that man 
after ages of struggle and suffering should have reached his present con- 
dition, and then after some millions of years which yet are as nothing in 
comparison with infinite time, should slowly devolve until he ceases to 
exist, merely in order that it and he should form part of a " glorious 
collision," is to deny that the Universe and human life have any purpose 
whatever. Still, if this be our destiny, we must face it. The only question 
is, What manner of men should we be, and what should we do ? Dr 



192 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Nansen replies, " Be as happy as possible, and develop yourselves to the 
utmost." " Be as happy as possible " is good advice. Carpe diem is the 
highest wisdom, if the conclusions of science are true. Though whether 
happiness be possible when we know that every tick of the clock is carrying 
us towards blank negation is another question. It will probably depend 
on temperament. But why should we develop ourselves? Is it worth 
while to do so when in a few short years, in comparison with infinite time, 
we ourselves and finally all of us and all our achievements will be " wiped 
out as a dream of the past/' 

" What the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, varying voices of prayer, 
All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy, all that is fair, 
What is it all, if all of us end but in being our own corpse coffins at last, 
Swallowed in vastness, lost in silence, drowned in the deeps of a meaning- 
less past." 

If it be replied, Develop yourself, because by so doing you will increase 
your own happiness and that of others, the answer is Why should I think 
of others, and why should I develop myself if I am already as happy as I 
can conceive myself to be, undeveloped ? It is useless to tell me that I 
should be happier if I was unselfish, and should develop myself. I can 
reply that others may take that view of happiness if they will, but I am 
quite content to remain as I am. As I am already as happy as I can imagine 
possible. I have fulfilled my " one duty " of making the most of this life 
and of being " as happy as possible." 

If the naturalist view of the world be true, to make the most of this life 
is wise and prudent : to talk of it being a duty is absurd. And everyone 
has a perfect right to make the most of this life in his own way. If A 
thinks he can make the most of this life in drunkenness and B in self- 
sacrifice, the naturalist view must regard both as equally good. B has no 
right to claim that his manner of life is higher and better than that of A. 
It is higher and better for B. But he has no right to say that it would 
be the same for A ; and if he try to convince A that self-sacrifice and 
unselfishness are better than drunkenness, A can reply, We are both agreed 
that we should make the most of this life and be as happy as possible 
you find your happiness in self-sacrifice, while I find it in drunkenness. 
Both of us are thus making the most of life and fulfilling our " one duty," 
and what right have you to say that your mode of making the most of 
this life is better than mine ? If B should reply that A ought to think of 
others, and that his drunkenness lessens their happiness on the naturalist 
view, A can reply, Why should he think of others ? Is it worth while for 
him to sacrifice his own happiness for beings so ephemeral as they ? Why 
should he detract from his own happiness to add to theirs, whose loss of 
happiness or even whose misery are but "passing trifles," and therefore 
" not so very important after all " ? How, indeed, can he be certain that 
by giving up his own happiness for the sake of others, he is not lessening 
instead of increasing the sum of happiness in the world ? How can he be 



DISCUSSIONS 193 

certain that the loss of happiness on his part is not greater than the happi- 
ness his unselfishness may confer on others ? He cannot be certain, and 
therefore, if his " one duty " is " to be as happy as possible " and to make 
the most of this life, his wisest plan is to look after himself, and to think 
of others only so far as they are a means to his happiness. On the 
naturalist view all moral distinctions and all appeals on moral grounds 
disappear. 

Dr Nansen seems to think that the one test of greatness is mere size. 
If we want to learn to be modest, to be convinced of our own insignificance, 
and to find comfort for all the ills of life, we need only contemplate the 
" star-spangled heavens " and reflect upon the infinity of space. Whether 
a patient suffering from the agony of a cancer, for example, will find 
much consolation in " listening to the silence of illimitable space " or in 
contemplating the " star-spangled heavens," or be convinced thereby that 
his suffering is but a " passing trifle," and " is not so very important after 
all," even if he has been trained in that modesty which Dr Nansen de- 
siderates, is more than doubtful. If his suffering allowed him to think, he 
would surely find more consolation in the thought that there was some- 
thing greater than " illimitable space " and the " star-spangled heavens," 
viz. his own mind, which was able to observe and reflect upon them. 

W. E. P. COTTER. 
EDINBURGH. 



THE RIGHT TO CONSTRAIN MEN FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. 

(Hibbert Journal, July 1908, p. 782.) 

IN an article under the above heading in the July Hibbert Journal, Pro- 
fessor W. M. Flinders Petrie, although touching on many important 
subjects in this connection, yet has omitted one which at the present time, 
however great indifference may be shown towards it by the majority, is 
nevertheless a topic of the day : I mean the right of constraint over the 
opium habit, which Professor Flinders Petrie merely mentions as u other 
drug habits," saying at the same time, that " the same principles " which 
he has been enunciating " must apply." It seems to me that this is a 
question eminently suited to discussion on the same lines as the other 
subjects mentioned in the article, and that it is a pity that the writer did 
not apply his principles to it in so many words. The opium question and 
the drink question have many points in common, but there are also two 
great differences between the two. There is no doubt that the opium 
question comes under heading B of Professor Flinders Petrie's "three 
degrees," for " we can already perceive some countervailing forces." It is 
unnecessary to enumerate these countervailing forces, or alternative evils, 
for they are, in the main, the same as those already mentioned in the 
VOL. VII. No. 1. 13 



194 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

article in connection with the possible suppression of alcohol, and agree 
with the eight points to be considered as set forth on pp. 788 and 789. 
The same arguments, for and against, apply equally to the forcible sup- 
pression of the opium and the alcohol habits ; except that it may possibly 
be said that over-indulgence in the former tends to less evils than does 
excessive alcohol drinking, for a man under the influence of opium does 
not go home and beat his wife with a poker. Also it may be added that 
the abuse of opium does not tend to set up a " craving " for the stimulant 
in the offspring ; and therefore opium is not as dangerous per se to third 
parties as is alcohol. 

The first point of disagreement between the two is that the opium 
habit is not one of the " faults and follies of our own people at home." 
The question has arisen almost solely in its bearings on the Chinese. And 
it is at least open to question whether we, as a nation, have the right to 
injure those to whom we are bound by legal ties, for the benefit (granting, 
for the moment, that benefit will accrue) of those to whom we are not. 
And this brings us to the second point of divergence. Everyone is agreed 
that it would be a good thing to do away with the evils of drink, if it 
were possible to do so on a strictly ethical basis : many have tried, and are 
trying, but, so far, no one has succeeded. But means have been found, 
and are being put into execution, for restricting the growth of opium in 
India, whereby it is hoped (falsely, as I believe), by limiting the output, 
to limit its use and abuse by the Chinese and others. The output of 
opium can be limited, or even totally suppressed, in India as in no other 
opium-growing country in the world, to the great detriment of India and 
its revenue. But have we the right to do it ? 

The mistake made by those ardent pseudo- moralists who desire the 
total suppression of the sale of opium (except for medicinal purposes) is 
the tacit assumption on their part that its use, as that of alcohol, is wrong 
in itself, and that therefore its suppression, regardless of the right of the 
millions who use it in moderation, is necessarily right. 

I am aware that I have not even touched the fringe ol the opium 
question as such. But my sole object was to examine it in the light of the 
ethical principles so ably argued by Professor Flinders Petrie. All those 
who, with me, cordially subscribe to those principles (without, however, 
necessarily agreeing with all the proposed measures for lessening the drink 
evil) must, in answer to the question, Have we the right forcibly to restrain 
the Chinese from using opium ? give a decided negative, and condemn as 
unmoral any action tending in that direction. And, in view of the fact 
that in China itself immense quantities of opium are produced over which 
there cannot be, as in India, any efficient control, it is no answer to say 
that the Chinese themselves desire the restriction of the opium traffic. 

R. S. WlDDRINGTON, 

6Qtk Rifles. 
SAUOOR, C.P. 



DISCUSSIONS 195 

THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND AND ITS FORMULA. 

(Hibbert Journal, July 1908, p. 869.) 

IF the views of my friend Mr Campbell as set forth in his article on " The 
Church of Scotland and its Formula " in the July number of the Hibbert 
are representative of any considerable party in the Established Church, 
then we are within sight of a movement towards disestablishment arising 
within the Church itself. Mr Campbell, it is true, does not even mention 
disestablishment as a thing to be desired. He shrinks from it. But the 
inevitable logic of his position will drive him to it all the same. It is 
impossible to see in what other way the Church of Scotland can be honour- 
ably extricated out of the impasse in which it finds itself. 

Such a movement would be welcomed by many friends of the Church 
of Scotland outside its borders. This would be a legitimate form of 
disestablishment a church freeing itself from alien bonds which it finds 
intolerable. It would be, besides, a necessary and indispensable step 
towards the union of the two great Presbyterian Churches in Scotland. 

By Clause 5 of the Act of Parliament which settled the affairs of the 
churches in Scotland, arising from the notorious decision of the House of 
Lords, liberty was given to the Church of Scotland to alter its formula of 
subscription to the Confession of Faith. It was desired by those who 
prepared this Act to give to the Church of Scotland what may be called 
*' the most favoured nation treatment," and Clause 5 was hailed as a new 
charter of liberty. It turns out, however, that the " new charter " is a 
delusion. " In 1905," says Mr Campbell, " liberty was obtained to alter 
the part of the formula quoted, which remains henceforth under the 
exclusive jurisdiction of the Church. As, however, the Act of 1690 is 
unaffected, the Church still remains bound to the Confession and has 
liberty of movement only within its limits." So it turns out that the only 
liberty which the Church has got is liberty " to turn on its bed of pain." 
The liberty to alter the formula, without power to alter the Confession, 
will issue in a new formula which in the circumstances can only be an 
ignoble equivocation. Mr Campbell sees this, and rightly protests. He 
sees the logical issue of the situation also, but shrinks from it. " To stifle 
the cry for freedom, to bind the conscience by inelastic formulas, can have 
only one result in the Scottish Church. It will hasten a movement, not for 
an amended formula, but for the rejection of the Confession of Faith. This 
has to come some day, we have no doubt. But if it were demanded at 
present it could be granted only by the repeal of the Act of 1690, and 
what that means in the present state of Scotland it is not necessary to set 
forth here." It means of course, disestablishment the one logical and 
honourable way out of the difficulty. 

Mr Campbell's alternative (stated with a cynical frankness and blunt- 
ness positively refreshing in a writer on ecclesiastical matters, but likely 
to make his more cautious brethren gasp with horror) is this : " Would 



196 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

it not be better to hold by the Confession, that if we have not uniformity 
of belief we may at least have uniformity of make-believe?" We 
admire the candour of the question, but what are we to say to what it 
suggests ? As a jest, it is untimely ; if seriously meant, it is more in keep- 
ing with the expedients of those ecclesiastical Gallios whose souls have 
become asphyxiated by the poisonous atmosphere of blue-books than with 
the open mind of our parish minister. 

Mr Campbell's instinct for freedom is right, but it is new-born. His 
eyes are as yet but half opened. That he should " see men as trees walking " 
and some other things a little in confusion is therefore not so much to be 
wondered at. He will pardon me reminding him of the lesson which our 
race has learned at a great price. It is this. Freedom is won : it is not 
gifted. It can never, never be won by uniformitarians in " make-believe." 

With his discussion of the " formula " Mr Campbell has incorporated 
some remarks on the progress of the Scottish Church. The classical age 
of that Church is assigned (to our surprise) to the Moderates of the 
eighteenth century. Among these David Hume is accorded a place of 
honour ! Here again we have difficulty in believing that Mr Campbell is 
serious. His apotheosis of Hume and the Moderates has the effect of an 
elaborate jest, though possibly it is not so intended. We know what 
Hume thought of his ironical canonisation by the wag who chalked " St 
David's Street " on the corner of his house, then newly built, and forming 
the beginning of a street then unnamed. One wonders what he would say 
to Mr Campbell ranking him with the prophets ! 

Hume, it is true, consorted with the Moderates, and they with him. It 
would, however, be surprising to learn that they all did so. It is an open 
question whether this fraternisation of Hume and the ministers was really 
creditable to either side. Could Hume really respect men who meekly 
swallowed his covert insults against their religion ? It may be doubted. 
Wellington, we know, had to consort with the Spaniards. We have no 
reasons for believing that he respected his Spanish " friends " more highly 
than his French enemies. 

This is not the occasion to offer a critique on Hume; but the cry 
" Back to Hume and the Moderates " sounds queer as the rallying cry of 
any party in a church of the twentieth century. The Moderates, if they 
stood for anything in particular, stood for " culture " a somewhat thin and 
insipid variety of it. Their sympathies, if they had any, leaned towards 
the French Encyclopaedia. As a party, they contributed nothing to religion 
in the usual sense of the term. Mr Campbell wishes to utter a chivalrous 
word for them, and we have no quarrel with him for doing so. We only 
protest when he praises them at the expense of the "other side." Mr 
Campbell's references to the revival at Cambuslang and other movements 
of the kind as " orgies of fanaticism " and " fantastic devil-worship " must 
be admitted by himself, on reflection, to be an offence to good taste. They 
show also (and this is even more serious) a misapprehension of what 



DISCUSSIONS 197 

religion is in its true inwardness, in its real essence. It is surely un- 
necessary to point out that the subject-matter of religion is not the same 
as the subject-matter of philosophy or literature. However eminent Hume 
may be as a thinker or Robertson or Blair as literary men (and no one 
denies them their claim), yet such eminence does not constitute them 
religious forces. This confusion runs through the whole of the article 
dealing with the wider aspect of religion in Scotland, and makes any helpful 
conclusions impossible. Looked at from the point of view of Dr James 
in his article on a cognate theme in the same number of the Hibbert, 
Mr Campbell's strictures seem hopelessly out of focus and out of date. 

In a short discussion it is impossible to supply a full corrective to Mr 
Campbell's one-sided and antiquated views ; but he may be reminded that 
" revivals " have a rational justification in so far as they supply the raw 
material for the sculpturing forces of God to act upon. They have their 
analogy in the physical world in the volcanic action that throws up new 
material to replace that which has been worn down. So regarded, the 
" work at Cambuslang " has the same justification as the " work at 
Pentecost," and answers to the same end. " The gold-dust comes to birth 
with the quartz sand all around it, and this is as much a condition of 
religion as of any other excellent possession." I commend this quotation 
from the article by Dr James to Mr Campbell's consideration. When he 
appreciates the bearings of it, one has the hope that his scorn of 
" revivals " will be considerably mitigated. 

It cannot be expected that we of the United Free Church who repre- 
sent the evangelical tradition in Scotland, and are the heirs of the 
Secession and the Disruption, are able to accept Mr Campbell's article as 
a satisfactory contribution to a difficult subject, but we can welcome it as 
a candid indication of the position of himself and his party in the Church 
of Scotland. It is evident that much rubbish must be cleared away 
before we get a satisfactory and stable " site " for the comprehensive union 
which many of us desire to see consummated. 

DAVID HOUSTON. 

ST OLAF'S UNITED FREE MANSE, 
LERWICK. 



REVIEWS 



The Religious Teachers of Greece. Being Gifford Lectures on Natural 
Religion delivered at Aberdeen. By James Adam, Litt.D., LL.D., 
Fellow and Senior Tutor of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Edited, 
with a Memoir, by his Wife. Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark, 1908. 
Pp. xx + LVI + 468. 

THE area covered by the Gifford Lectureships in the Scottish Universities 
tends constantly to widen, and in these lectures the late Dr Adam entered 
on a comparatively new and very fruitful field of inquiry. It is true that 
four or five years previously Dr Edward Caird devoted his second series of 
Gifford Lectures to a study of the development of theological ideas in 
Greek philosophy ; but while three-fourths of his book is occupied with 
Aristotle and those who came after him, Dr Adam does not follow his 
subject beyond Plato, and a great part of his volume is devoted to the 
poets, who, even more than the philosophers, were " the religious teachers " 
of classical Greece. Thus the two books are admirably adapted to 
supplement one another, and together they give a far more complete 
account of the development of Greek religious thought than has hitherto 
existed in this country. 

The value of this volume of Dr Adam's lectures is greatly increased by 
the memoir with which it opens. Like another great scholar, Robertson 
Smith, he was born under the shadow of that Aberdeenshire mountain, 
Benachie, from whose slopes so many distinguished men have come. Like 
Robertson Smith, he spent a strenuous and brilliant life at Aberdeen and 
Cambridge ; and both men passed away at the early age of forty-seven. 
The story of Adam's earlier years is one that has often found a place in 
the annals of Scottish scholarship ; but it is here told in a way that brings 
vividly before the reader the difficulties against which the young scholar 
had to contend, his early love for Greek, which he went off to study on 
the moors in summer after a breakfast of porridge taken at 5.30 a.m., his 
years of intense application at that rigorous home of learning, Aberdeen 
University, and the encouragement which he gained from the teaching and 
friendship of Sir William Geddes. Both at this time and in his years at 
Cambridge, Adam appears as much more than a mere scholar : as a man of 
wide humanity and many enthusiasms, loved by children, and admired by 
those whom he taught. He speaks himself (p. 365) of the " prcefervidum 
ingenium characteristic of the idealist " ; and it was because he added this 

198 



RELIGIOUS TEACHERS OF GREECE 199 

power of quick intuition and poetic insight, derived perhaps from some 
Celtic ancestor, to an Aberdonian persistence and acuteness of mind that 
he was so well fitted to act as an interpreter of the many-sided genius of 
Plato. To the same ardent and intense temperament was probably due 
that alternation of periods of mental exhilaration and intense depression 
of which we are here told. Perhaps the highest praise that can be given 
this memoir is to say that it is written with a truly Hellenic directness 
id restraint, and that its fifty-five pages give so complete and living a 
>icture of its subject that even those who did not know Adam feel them- 
Ives in actual contact with the personality of the author in reading the 

js that follow. 

Mention should also be made of the number and accuracy of the 
jferences, which show both the industry with which Dr Adam collected 
le materials for his work and the care spent on its revision. The only 
lission which we have detected in the editorial part of the work is that 
jveral important headings (e.g., Apollo and Delphi) fail to appear in the 
idex. 

In his first lecture Dr Adam treats of the " feud between philosophy 
id poetry" 1 in respect to their theological ideas; and he proceeds to 
the development of religious thought, first in the poets from Homer 
Sophocles, next in the philosophers from Thales to the Sophists, and 
len in Euripides, who was at once philosopher his enemies said 
sophist " and poet ; while the whole work culminates appropriately in an 
:ount of the religious ideas of Socrates and Plato. This independent 
itment of the two contrasted lines of development gives clearness to 
Adam's exposition ; and the only possible criticisms of the arrangement 
of the work are that the lecture on Orphism comes in somewhat awkwardly 
between the sections on Bacchylides and Pindar, and that the book 
concludes abruptly with a short account of Plato^s doctrine of Immortality, 
the reader being left to gather up for himself the different threads which 
ive been unrolled in the lectures. 

Of these threads, perhaps the most important is that by which we 
)llow the gradual development of Greek thought from the early polytheism 
a monotheistic form of belief. In tracing this development in Greek 
>try the author shows a keen eye for those elements in the earlier poets 
rhich pointed to the thought of unity in the Divine nature ; and yet he 
careful not to attribute monotheism to the poets down to the time of 
>phocles. But even the polytheism of Homer represents an advance on 
" chaos of pre-existing legends and belief " ; for " we may well suppose 
it it is the universalising instinct of poetry which has apprehended and 
isfigured the universal element in the particular cults, creating out of 
d and provincial deities the awe-inspiring figures of a single Zeus, a 
single Apollo, a single Poseidon, and so on " (p. 8). Dr Gilbert Murray 
reached the same conclusion, and holds that the Homeric poets not 
ily unified but purified the religious beliefs of the Hellenic race (Rise of 
Greek Epic, pp. 134-5). But while Dr Murray lays the chief emphasis 



200 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

on the positive achievement of Homeric poetry in purifying belief and 
doing away with the " baleful confusion between man and God," Dr 
Adam freely acknowledges the darker side of Homeric religion, and 
points out that, though there were elements of idealism in the Homeric 
theology which raise it above the theology of Hesiod (pp. 29, 81), yet 
there is hardly a trace in Homer of the feeling that the gods ought to be 
regarded as moral examples to man (p. 65). Thus, although he finds the 
leading characteristic of the Homeric faith to be the sense of dependence 
upon the Divine power (pp. 21 ff.) a feeling which a great modern thinker 
considered the essence of religion he yet shows how long a path had 
to be traversed before this feeling was transformed into an ethical 
monotheism. 

To this end both the lyric and the tragic poets contributed. Pindar 
protested against the attribution of evil to the gods in words which anticipate 
Plato ; and in his odes, as in Hesiod and the Homeric hymns, Dr Adam 
traces the tendency to exalt Zeus above the other Olympians (pp. 71-2, 
83, 117-8). This tendency becomes clearer in ^Eschylus and Sophocles. 
Except in the Prometheus, which depicts a transitory phase in the Divine 
government of the world, the tendency of the Jschylean drama as a 
whole " is undoubtedly to exalt the authority of Zeus, and to make Destiny 
either his coadjutor or simply that which he decrees' 1 (p. 142). The idea 
that any less power than Destiny could thwart the will of Zeus has been 
left far behind; and in Sophocles the supremacy of Zeus is no longer 
questioned. But Dr Adam does not on that account define the religion 
of either poet as monotheistic. He describes the position of both in 
almost identical words : " The one essential difference between the 
polytheism of Homer and the polytheism of Sophocles is that in Sophocles 
there is no longer any conflict of wills in the celestial hierarchy: the 
authority of Zeus is not only supreme but unquestioned " (p. 177; cf. 
p. H4). 

But along with the development of belief regarding the gods in Greek 
poetry there went a widening current of human sympathy which had a 
genuinely religious aspect ; and to this also Dr Adam's book does justice. 
In Homer the sanction of right and noble conduct is not the example of 
the gods so much as the feeling of aiSw (p. 65). Probably no lines in 
Homer dealing directly with the gods have sunk more deeply into the 
hearts of succeeding generations of men, or have more genuinely religious 
a ring, than those in which Hector refuses to leave the battle, though he 
realises to the full the fate which awaits his wife and child as well as 
himself if he goes forward 

ovSe /xe 6v/j.o$ avwyev, eVel ftdOov eju/xei/at 6<rO\os 
aiel Kcti TrpcoTOKri /xera T/oaWa-f 



Here is u morality touched with emotion " ; and in course of time the 
moral and religious elements which in Homer were partially separated 
were bound to draw together. This ideal treatment of human nature 



RELIGIOUS TEACHERS OF GREECE 201 

was reinforced by HesiocTs teaching of the dignity of labour (pp. 80-1), 
and still more by the wide sympathy of Sophocles with suffering and his per- 
ception of its purifying influence (pp. 178 ff.). It is, however, in Euripides 
that it reaches its full force ; and Dr Adam rightly points out that it is 
this positive idea which underlies all the poet's destructive criticism (pp. 
297, 305). In spite of Euripides 1 violent revolt from the Homeric theology, 
yet in his poetry as in that of Homer the " moral grandeur of man " stands 
out against the frequent baseness of the gods. Thus Dr Adam's conclusion 
ims well within the mark when he says, " Perhaps the poet rendered some 
vice to religion by his new and deeper interpretation of humanity " 
p. 306 ; cf. pp. 66-7). 

These two topics by no means exhaust Dr Adam's treatment of this 
ivision of his subject. Other points on which light is thrown by his book are 
the doctrine of '" the envy of the gods " and its moralisation by ^Eschylus 
(pp. 37, 123-5, 157), and the teaching of the poets in regard to responsibility 
for sin. He also gives a very full and adequate account of the development 
of the idea of immortality. His pages on the Homeric conception of a 
future life follow the familiar lines, but he brings out with especial 
clearness the fact that, with the exception of a few " half-heroic figures " and 
favourites of the gods, future happiness or woe is not affected by the good 
or evil done on earth (p. 60). But in Pindar the influence of Orphic ideas 
begins to operate, although in general he holds to the Homeric theology. 
In decided contrast to JSschylus, he " contemplates with more satisfaction 
the rewards of virtue than the punishments of vice 11 (pp. 128, 145). It is 
in this connection that Dr Adam's account of Orphism is introduced ; and 
some readers may feel that he lays a rather disproportionate emphasis on 
the lower aspects of that obscure but intensely interesting movement, and 
that his description of Orphic " other- worldliness " needs some modification 
in view of Miss Harrison's conclusion, which he accepts on p. 101, that 
" consecration .... is the keynote of Orphic faith, 11 rather than immor- 
tality as a separate end. Dr Adam concludes his chapter by remarking that 
Orphism had to be intellectualised, and that "the intellectualisation of 

E belief was effected by Plato 11 (p. 114). But this was only one aspect 
'lato's achievement. It was at least as great a thing to bring these new 
rious ideas into relation to the ethical and political ideals of Greece. 
1 in both these directions, as Dr Adam subsequently points out, Plato 
completing the work begun by the Pythagoreans, who sought moral 
emancipation not merely by ritual, but also by the pursuit of knowledge 
and by political action (pp. 193-7). 

In his account of Pre-Socratic Philosophy Dr Adam traces from the 
first a monistic element which was " bound to bring it into conflict with 
Greek polytheism " (p. 190), and which did something to prepare the way 
for monotheism. In this part of the volume there is a much greater 
tendency to interpret early thinkers by the help of later ideas than in that 
which deals with the poets. In the case of Xenophanes this comes out 
strongly ; while in discovering the beginnings of the " Logos-doctrine " in 



202 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Heraclitus and in arguing that Anaxagoras thought of Nous as incor- 
poreal, Dr Adam takes a widely different view from that of Professor 
Burnet. The difference of attitude between the two writers is illustrated 
by their remarks on Anaxagoras. Professor Burnet says : " Zeller holds 
indeed that Anaxagoras meant to speak of something incorporeal ; but he 
fully admits that he did not succeed in doing so, and this is historically 
the important point " (Early Greek Philosophy, p. 293). But Dr Adam 
holds that " the historically important point is not whether Anaxagoras 
called Nous God or not ; it is rather to what extent he ascribed to Nous 
those attributes and functions which, according to the theology of later 
times, belong to the Deity " (p. 264). If it is objected that this method 
of interpretation introduces a subjective element, one might reply with Dr 
Adam that there is a suspicion of petitio principii in (e.g.) refusing to 
admit that so original a thinker as Heraclitus might have used the term 
Logos in a sense for which there is no other authority in his time (p. 221). 
In curious contrast to Dr Adam's generous treatment of the other Pre- 
Socratics is his abrupt dismissal of Parmenides and the Eleatic School 
after two pages as " of little or no importance to the student of theological 
ideas " (p. 244). 

In his treatment of the Sophists and Socrates Dr Adam takes up a 
conservative position, laying greater emphasis than many recent writers on 
the destructive side of the Sophistic teaching and on the positive religious 
teaching of Socrates. He argues for the subjective and individualistic 
interpretation of the Homo Mensura, relying largely on the testimony of 
the Thextetus (p. 274), and apparently setting aside the more favourable 
view of the teaching of the great sophist suggested by Plato in the 
Protagoras. But at the same time he acknowledges the influence of the 
Sophists, along with Euripides and in a deeper sense Socrates himself, in 
preparing the way for the Stoic and Christian ideal of human brotherhood 
(pp. 283, 325). 

The closing sections of the book are perhaps the best of all. In 
dealing with Socrates and Plato Dr Adam was on familiar ground, and 
he was able to bring, even to those parts of his subject which have been 
most frequently discussed, a rare freshness and clearness of vision, as well 
as a wealth of detailed knowledge. He finds the keynote of Socrates' 1 
character in his union of rationalism and transcendentalism. " The union 
of prophet and rationalist is so rare in our experience, that writers on 
Socrates have often unduly emphasised one of the two sides of his char- 
acter at the expense of the other " (p. 321 ). Dr Adam avoids this mistake, 
and shows how a recognition of both the critical and, to use his own word, 
the " prophetic " aspects is necessary to a true understanding of Socrates. 
In so doing he makes a larger use of Xenophon's evidence than most recent 
writers. 

In his treatment of Plato Dr Adam shows the same gift of recovering 
evidence from sources which have often been comparatively overlooked. 
In his lecture on the " Cosmological Doctrine " he draws from the Timceus 



RELIGIOUS TEACHERS OF GREECE 203 

a number of telling illustrations of the metaphysics of the Republic. The 
following lectures are entitled : " Elements of Asceticism and Mysticism," 
" The Theory of Education," and " The Theory of Ideas " ; and each is a 
valuable contribution to the interpretation of an essential part of the 
Platonic thought. One of the most interesting, but, at the same time, 
debatable passages, is that in which the author argues that the Idea of 
the Good in the Republic should be interpreted in the light of the state- 
ments regarding the Divine Mind in the Philebus and Sophist (pp. 446-7). 
Here, again, we notice the " teleological " as opposed to the literal method 
of interpretation. 

But perhaps the most original parts of Dr Adam's treatment of Plato 
are the parallels which he points out between Platonic and Christian 
thought. Especially suggestive are his comparisons of the Platonic and 
Pauline conceptions of the temporal and the eternal worlds, of the natural 
and the spiritual life, and of death to sin and resurrection to a new life 
(pp. 359 f., 381-6). And that the parallels which he here traces were 
present to his mind throughout is shown by his words in his opening 
lecture : fc< The particular suggestion which 1 desire to make is, that the 
religious ideas of Greek philosophy are of peculiar importance for the 
student of early Christian literature in general, and more especially for 
the student of St Paul's Epistles and the Fourth Gospel. 'Neque sine 
Graecis Christianas, neque sine Christianis Graecae litterae recte aut intelligi 
aut aestimari possunt 1 " (p. 2). It is a great gain that by studies such as 
this of the religious thought of Greece, as well as by studies of Hebrew 
thought which show its essentially human side, we should be enabled to 
appreciate the points of contact of Greek and Hebrew thought as well as 
their points of difference. The old hard and fast antithesis of Hebraism 
and Hellenism, which placed them in unmediated opposition, is gradually 
giving place to a truer distinction which recognises these two great 
factors in the life and thought of the race as complementary rather than 
as wholly antagonistic. 

Dr Adam's book is likely to hold its place for long, not only because 
of its learning and philosophic insight, but as a complete and worthy 
memorial consummatio totius vit& of a life of constant and conspicuous 
devotion to the study of Greek literature and thought. 

G. F. BARBOUR. 

PlTLOCHRY, N.B. 



Essays, Philosophical and Psychological, in honor of William James, 
Professor in Harvard University. By his Colleagues at Columbia 
University. Longmans, Green & Co., 1908. Pp. viii + 610. 

IT is a fitting and graceful act on the part of the Philosophical Faculty 
of Columbia University to do honour to a great teacher by a collection 
of essays dealing with the various subjects on which he has taught. " This 



204 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

volume is intended," as is stated in the prefatory note, " to mark in some 
degree its authors' 1 sense of Professor Jameses memorable services in 
philosophy and psychology, the vitality he has added to those studies, 
and the encouragement that has flowed from him to colleagues without 
number. " The authors have rightly judged that their purpose did not 
demand a slavish adherence to Professor James's own doctrines. Some of 
them are pragmatists, some, apparently, are not ; but since, in philosophy, 
unanimity is only found where thought has ceased, this is a state of 
things which not even the most ardent pragmatist need regret. 

The essays deal with a great multiplicity of subjects : metaphysics, 
theory of knowledge, history of philosophy, ethics, and psychology. It is 
impossible in the space of a review to do justice to all the contributions; 
but there are two essays which deserve special attention, as being concerned 
with the advocacy of some of the most fundamental of William James's 
philosophical opinions. These are the essays by Professor Dewey and 
Professor C. A. Strong, which are both really on the nature of knowledge. 

Professor Dewey 's essay : " Does Reality possess Practical Character ? " 
is the only one which definitely undertakes the defence of the pragmatic 
position. Professor Dewey has a great contempt for theory of knowledge, 
which he alludes to as " that species of confirmed intellectual lock-jaw 
called epistemology." Nevertheless his essay is a contribution to that 
subject, being an attempt to explain how knowledge can be accurate and 
can yet change the object known, as pragmatism avers that it must do. 
His position is that, although knowledge changes the object from what it 
was before we knew it, it may succeed in changing it into precisely what 
we know it to be, so that after the knowing has produced its effect on the 
object, it becomes accurate. Pragmatisn holds, he says, that knowledge 
makes a difference to the object, but not to the object-fo-fo-known. A 
reality which is the appropriate object of knowledge may be one in which 
knowledge has succeeded in making the needed difference. And again : 
" knowing fails in its business if it makes a change in its own object that 
is a mistake ; but its own object is none the less a prior existence changed 
in a certain way." This view, on the face of it, is much more Kantian 
than, one would gather, its defenders consider it to be. There is an 
unknowable thing in itself, which is altered by contact with the knower in 
such a way as to become knowable. Where, I suppose, it chiefly differs 
from Kant is in the element of experiment. That is, there is an object, X, 
which will be changed by any belief we may entertain about it. Hence if 
we could believe it to be X, we should be wrong, because our belief would 
have made it cease to be X. Thus X itself is essentially unknowable. 
Suppose that if we believe it to be Xj, it becomes Y t ; if we believe it to 
be X 2 , it becomes Y 2 , and so on. Then the problem is to find an X n which 
is identical with Y n . A priori, one would say there might be many such 
X^s, or there might be none. If there were many, the reality would be 
ambiguous for knowledge ; if none, it would be unknowable. 

It would be interesting to know how Professor Dewey deals with these 



PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS 205 

possibilities. Professor Dewey urges that the reason why objection is 
taken to the view that knowledge alters things is that the theory of 
knowledge is built on the assumption of a static universe. But this surely 
rests upon a misunderstanding. The truth about what changes does not 
itself change. Professor Dewey seems to hold some principle of the same 
type as 

" Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat/' 

namely, "Truths about change must themselves be changeable." Thus 
such a proposition as "the date of the Conquest is 1066" must be 
supposed to have been true in 1066, but to be true no longer. To suppose 
it always true does not, on any other hypothesis, involve denial of the 

lity of that change which we call the Conquest. It is to be hoped 
that pragmatists will some day show us how it is that this confusion is 
not really involved in their theory of knowledge. 

Professor C. A. Strong's article on " Substitutionalism " is very inter- 
esting, but far too brief for its theme. His essential thesis, he tells us, is 
a proposition in regard to the mechanism of cognition, namely, " that it 
happens by the projection of a sentient experience into the place of the 
>bject cognized, and is not a species of intuition. ... By projection [he 
continues] I mean that the experience evokes actions (and thoughts, which 
are a sort of actions) appropriate to the object, and not to itself as an 
experience." Thus in memory, for example, we have a more or less 
perfect reproduction of the past, which provokes us to act as if what we 
had to do with were not the present state, but the past object. The 
difficulty which naturally occurs to the reader, that on this theory there 
seems no reason to suppose that experience has to do with objects at all, 
is very candidly stated, but is not dealt with, on the plea that it is too 
large for a short essay. We are therefore, for the present, left to 
conjecture how it would be solved. 

There are two interesting essays on Realism, one by Professor Fullerton, 
called " The New Realism," and one by Professor Miller, called " Naive 
Realism : What is It ? " Professor Fullerton considers the question as to 
the concessions which realism must make in order to meet idealist 
criticisms, and concludes that idealism has not succeeded in making every 
kind of realism untenable. "He who declares all phenomena to be 
mental," he says, " repudiates the actual knowledge of the world which 
both the unlearned and the learned seem to have. He repudiates a 
distinction which is embedded in the very structure of human experience." 
It is therefore worth while to make an effort to preserve this distinction. 
" What right," he asks, " has the philosopher to rub out this distinction ? 
He has no right. The idealistic philosopher who maintains that the 
objective order which we are all forced to accept, and of which science 
attempts to give us an exact account, is an Absolute Mind, has simply 
recognised the external world, and has given it the wrong name." But 
" the realist should frankly admit that the only external world about 



206 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

which it can be profitable to talk at all is an external world revealed in 
experience " ; the mistake of the idealist consists in supposing that this 
obliges us to identify an object with our experiences of it. 

Professor Dickinson S. Miller, in his essay on Naive Realism, endeavours 
to prove that " naive realism," if this means the realism of the philosophi- 
cally unsophisticated, cannot be regarded as a " theory " at all. " It is," 
he says, " more na'ive than we thought. All there is of it is acceptable." 
There is no such thing, he says, as a " conscious transubjective reference." 
It is true that in perception we recognise an object as " external to our- 
selves," but this does not mean " external to our consciousness " : it means 
"external to our bodies, primarily; and secondarily, distinct from our 
feelings and ideas." The essay is ingenious and careful, but it seems 
legitimate to doubt whether naive realism is as little of a theory conceming 
objects as Professor Miller believes it to be. 

There is a good essay by Professor Brown on " The Problem of Method 
in Mathematics and Philosophy," in which it is pointed out that mathe- 
matics, for all its apparatus of deduction, is really an inductive science, and 
that its method is (or should be ?) also that of philosophy. There are, 
according to Professor Brown, three stages of science, namely, (I) the pure 
empirical, which merely collects facts ; (2) the merely hypothetical, which 
proposes hypotheses to connect the facts ; (3) the hypothetico-deductive, 
" in which the hypotheses have been sufficiently verified so that they may 
be taken together as premises, and new conclusions deduced which are 
found to be also verified." Mathematics and philosophy alone, he says, 
have reached the third stage. It would seem possible to maintain, as 
against this view of the actual stage reached by philosophy, that there is 
an earlier stage than any of Professor Brown's three, namely, the purely 
deductive, in which unverified hypotheses are used to supply what are 
regarded as proofs of untested conclusions. This stage, which looks very 
like the hypothetico-deductive, was, roughly, the stage in which mechanics 
was before Galileo, and might be regarded by the sceptic as the stage in 
which philosophy still is. Otherwise, it seems hard to account for the 
immense difference in certainty between the conclusions of philosophy and 
those of mathematics. 

The last essay in the book, " A Pragmatic Substitute for Free Will," 
by Professor Thorndike, rouses hopes by its title which are hardly 
fulfilled by the subsequent argument. In the first place, we are told (on 
the authority of William James) that the only reason why free will has 
pragmatic value is in order to assure us that the world may grow better. 
Now what in fact makes most people desire free will is that they wish to 
think themselves meritorious and their enemies wicked. But if we let 
this pass, we still find that the essay does not fulfil its promise. " I shall 
try to prove," says Professor Thorndike, "that the behavior of human 
beings changes the world for the better for them, and for future human 
beings." The proof proceeds by means of five hypotheses as to the 
physiological behaviour of neurones. As a cure for pessimism, it suffers 



PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS 207 

from the defect of not disproving the accepted theory that the earth must 
some day become uninhabitable ; and in other respects it fails to be con- 
vincing to those who are more alive to the facts of human existence than 
to the theories of psychophysics. 

The book, as a whole, is easy and pleasant reading, and shows serious 
attempts to grapple with some of the most important problems of 
philosophy. The method of short essays has the drawback that no really 
difficult subject can be treated as fully as would be necessary for an 
adequate discussion ; but, within the inevitable limitation, many of the 
essays will be found stimulating and highly suggestive. 

B. RUSSELL. 
OXFORD. 



Philosophy of Loyalty. By Josiah Royce, Professor of the History 
of Philosophy in Harvard University. New York : The Macmillan 
Company, 1908. Pp. xiii + 409. 

us book consists of eight lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute 
Boston in 1907. The rather curious title was suggested by Steinmetz's 
)k on the Philosophy of War; and it has been part of the author's 
sk to break the " ancient and disastrous association " that makes loyalty 
ibservient to the war-spirit. The warrior is not the only or the best 
ipresentative of the spirit of rational loyalty : loyalty is of much wider 
rificance ; and the author attempts to show that " in loyalty, when 
>yalty is properly defined, is the fulfilment of the whole moral law." It 
therefore with a philosophy of morals that we are here presented ; and, 
Ithough the title of the book may have been suggested by Steinmetz, a 
>re important motive may perhaps be traced in the choice. Philoso- 
icrs of Professor Royce's way of thinking have commonly expressed the 
>ral ideal by some such conception as self-realisation, or the development 
perfection of personal qualities ; and this conception has often produced 
impression of being only a form though an idealist form of egoism 
individualism. The criticism does less than justice to the conception 
personality as it is found either in Hegel or in T. H. Green. But it is 
>vious enough to affect the popular mind, and to make it worth while 
for an author who lays such stress as Professor Royce does on the social 
factor in life to avoid the suggestion from the outset, and to make it clear 
that morality does not lie in the self or its development as a mere indi- 
vidual, but in something that lifts it out of this mere individuality and 
unites it with the universe in which all selves are included. For this 
reason he seems to have chosen the conception of loyalty to describe his 
moral principle. For the loyal man devotes himself to a cause in which 
his mere individuality is lost ; and he devotes himself to it willingly as 
finding in its success the fulfilment of his own life. 

Loyalty is defined at least preliminarily as " the willing and prac- 
tical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause." And a cause 



208 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

means " something that is conceived by its loyal servant as unifying the 
lives of various human beings into one life." And the whole law and the 
prophets can be summed up in the command " be loyal." There is a good 
deal of value in this way of putting the matter ; and Professor Royce is no 
doubt right in pointing to many of the unhealthy conditions of modern, 
especially American, life as due to lack of loyalty to any worthy cause. 
For this reason the author's homiletics are to be welcomed. Loyalty is at 
least a primary and important factor in the moral life, if it is not the 
whole of it. From this point of view also the diffuseness of the author's 
style and his habit of constant repetition of the same idea in similar or 
identical phrase may be explained. Popular audiences can only be con- 
vinced by repetition. And the author unites all the accomplishments of 
the orator with the insight of the metaphysician. But it would be too 
much to assert that he has been able altogether to overcome the traditional 
opposition between the rhetorician and the philosopher. From the 
latter's point of view the book might have been better if it had been 
shorter. The reader is apt to be carried over the difficult places of the 
argument by the flow of the author's eloquence rather than by the force of 
his logical reasoning. 

The fundamental difficulty of the whole position is that loyalty to a 
cause is, after all, a merely formal conception. Professor Royce is thus 
in the same difficulty as Kant was when he attempted to deduce a moral 
code from a formal principle. His method of solution is indeed different 
from Kant's, and consists in a certain modification, perhaps deepening, 
of the initial conception of loyalty. But the questions which arise are 
much the same. How are we to distinguish the good from the bad among 
the causes to which men may be loyal ? And what canon of preference is 
there for choosing between competing causes, each of which by itself might 
be regarded as good ? 

For solving these and similar questions Professor Royce makes use 
of that modified or deepened conception which I have referred to, and 
which he expresses by the phrase " loyalty to loyalty." I am not sure 
that this phrase is always used with exactly the same meaning. In some 
cases it seems to mean much the same as what is commonly described by 
the term conscientiousness as applied to the man who is scrupulous in 
always observing and following the dictates of his conscience. The 
example given on pp. 135-7 seems to be a case of this sort, for in it 
the obvious loyalty of the official to his chief was superseded by the 
higher loyalty which the official's conscience told him he owed to truth. 
But the example is too long to quote or to discuss, and the explicit 
meaning given to the phrase "loyalty to loyalty" is simply the promotion 
of loyalty in self and others. " Be loyal to loyalty " means " do what you 
can to produce a maximum of the devoted service of causes, a maximum 
of fidelity, and of selves that choose and serve fitting objects of loyalty." 
The word "fitting" here might seem to beg the whole question of the 
distinction of good from bad causes. But this can hardly be intended, 



PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY 209 

and "fitting" must be interpreted to mean simply fit to encourage or 
produce more loyalty. Maximum of loyalty, therefore, may be said to 
be the end for Professor Royce, just as maximum of pleasure is for the 
Hedonists. It is easy to show that the ordinary virtues of social life 
exhibit and encourage loyalty. In the same way the Hedonists had no 
difficulty in pointing out their felicific consequences. But can we use 
maximum of loyalty as a criterion for distinguishing between good causes 
and bad? The difficulties here are similar to those in the way of the 
Hedonist. If the example may be pardoned, we may say that loyalty to 
Tammany and organisations like to it is a prominent feature in American 
political life. This feature is not all bad. Yet this very spirit of loyalty 
so directed is a more serious danger to good government than would be 
the total selfishnesses of all Tammany^s constituent members. Now, have 
we any calculus of loyalties capable of assuring us that if purity in politics 
were to triumph by the dissolution of Tammany and its fellows, there 
would be compensation in kind for the loyalties destroyed, and the 
maximum of loyalty throughout the American continent would be in- 
creased ? I am far from saying that even in this way compensation would 
not be granted ; but I do not know how the sum is to be worked, and I 
should not like to stake the cause of good government on the hazard of 
the calculation. And the author offers no suggestion of any such calculus 
of loyalties. The misfortune is that, apart from such a calculus or some 
substitute for it, his distinction of good from evil becomes a matter simply 
of common sense, not recognised as such. 

The lack of any criterion of any working principle is most plainly 
disclosed when Professor Royce goes on to discuss the second question 
which I have put a question which he states in the form, " How shall we 
decide, as between two apparently conflicting loyalties, which one to 
follow ? " Let it be granted that each loyalty contains promise of good 
in his example, good to the community from trained fitness for a pro- 
fessional career in competition with good to a family which disaster had 
bereft of its head. In such a case the principle of loyalty " commands 
simply but imperatively that, since I must serve, and since, at this critical 
loment, my only service must take the form of a choice between loyalties, 

11 choose, even in my ignorance, what form my service is henceforth to 
In other words, the principle of choice is choose. Having chosen, 
I must of course be faithful to my cause. This is no caricature. What 
the principle "clearly says" is formulated with all the emphasis that 
italics can give in the words, " Decide, knowingly if you can, ignorantly if 
you must, but in any case decide, and have no fear." Nothing can better 
illustrate the bare formality of the principle than this statement. It is 
true that other ethical theories than Professor Royce's must allow that 
" my special choice of my personal cause is always fallible."" But they 
usually point to some more or less definable end for their criterion : to 
happiness, or to well-being, or to the perfection of personal qualities ends 
the way to which may be difficult or dubious, but which at least offer a 

VOL. VIL No. 1. 14 




210 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

concrete ideal for action. They do not rest content with the ineffectual 
advice that the principle of choice is to choose. 

The two last lectures of the volume enter upon the metaphysics of the 
subject, and in them appears the author's final definition : " Loyalty is 
the will to manifest, so far as is possible, the Eternal, that is, the conscious 
and superhuman unity of life, in the form of the acts of an individual 
Self." There is value in this conception. But it adds nothing to the 
solution of those practical questions which occupy the greater portion of 
the volume. On the contrary, it increases the difficulties already pointed 
out. For the definition is so interpreted as to include all purposive 
activity of whatever kind. Evil, like good, becomes a will to manifest the 
Eternal, a "fragmentary form of the service of the cause of universal 
loyalty." Whatever be the truth of this view, it should be unnecessary to 
repeat that we are not helped to distinguish the evil cause from the good 
by being told that the distinction is merely a relative one. 

The metaphysics of loyalty stated by the author is at the same time a 
theory of truth and of reality. And here he expounds his own views in 
connection and contrast with those of Professor James. His criticism of 
his Harvard colleague is so appreciative, and his references to their points 
of disagreement are so intimate and personal, that the reader feels as if he 
were the unwilling witness of a domestic dispute in which it would be 
indecent for an outsider to interfere. Such interference need not be 
required of the present reviewer, as he has already had an opportunity of 
commenting on Professor Royce's metaphysical theory in the pages of this 
journal. That theory remains substantially the same as it was. Only it 
seems to me as if his attitude were modified by an approach to the pragmatic 
method, as if he, too, chose his philosophic road by a voluntary preference 
" knowingly if you can, ignorantly if you must" and then found reasons 
to justify his course. There is another way of philosophising a strait and 
narrow way ; and one would be glad to think that the author had not 
deserted it in which logic leads instead of being made to follow, and in 
which no step is taken but under the direction of reason. 

W. R. SORLRY. 
CAMBRIDGE. 



Identite et RealityPar mile Meyerson. Paris : Felix Alcan, 1908. 

Pp. vii + 431. 

THE variety of theories of the constitution of matter, the rapidity with 
which these and other comprehensive theories follow each other, have led 
scientists to formulate views on the nature of scientific aims and theories 
which some people find rather disconcerting. If the physics of philosophers 
has not proved satisfactory, the philosophy of physicists seems scarcely 
more so. An exhaustive examination of the subject would certainly appear 
desirable, and the book before us is an interesting contribution in this 



supe 
tion 



IDENTITY AND REALITY 211 

direction. Somewhat after the manner of Whewell, M. Meyerson tries to 
get at the philosophy of science by means of the historical evolution of the 
leading conceptions of modern science. The title of the book indicates the 
goal rather than the aim of our author's investigations. 

The book opens with an attempt to show the futility of trying to 
confine science to description and the discovery of uniformities, and to 
restrain it from causal hypotheses, or to explain these away as mere aids to 
the imagination and memory. Notwithstanding the protests of Comte, 

:h, and others, the history of science teems with causal explanations, 
md at the present as much as in the past. Causality is no mere Eldorado 
enticing scientists away from their proper business. The tendency to causal 
explanation has its roots deep in human nature, and is essential to human 
thought. It is the Principle of Identity applied to time ; and the Principle 
of Identity constitutes the very basis of thought. This gives the keynote 
of the whole book. Scientific principles are examined, with almost a 
superabundance of historical detail, in order to bring to light the subtle 

which the Principle of Identity plays in each of them. Their evolu- 
ion is presented in the light of a conflict of two opposing tendencies the 
tendency of Thought to find identity and unity in all things, and the 
tendency of Sense to accept the reality of infinite variety and incessant 
change. In so far as phenomena are amenable to the Principle of Identity 
they are intelligible or " rational " ; in so far as they are not so amenable 
they are unintelligible or " irrational."" 

In the mechanical interpretation of nature, the Principle of Identity 
prompts the reduction of all phenomena of change to movements of atoms 
which persist unchanged. The fact that there are so many views of the 
nature of these ultimate particles, and that they are all so readily 
accepted, suggests that the main feature in all these theories is that some- 
thing persists in the flux, while what it is that persists is only of secondary 
interest. Apparently any X will do, provided it can be regarded as 
permanently self-identical. As guiding ideas, mechanism and atomism 
have been, and still are, of great service to science. But they only indicate 
the direction, not the goal, of science ; if, per impossibile., they could be 
erected into a complete system, they would be quite unsatisfactory. The 
reason is explained partly in the course of an examination of the Principles 
of Inertia, of the Conservation of Matter, and of Energy, to which the 
author then turns his attention. 

The communication of motion by impact, simple as it appears through 
familiarity, is really unintelligible ; and action at a distance is as mysterious 
as self-movement. The Principle of Inertia cannot, therefore, be altogether 
a priori. Nor is it altogether a posteriori. It has something of the nature 
of both. The a priori Principle of Identity predisposes us to find some- 
thing persisting ; and any suggestion of experience as to what persists, at 
once appears plausible. Similarly with the Principle of the Conservation 
of Matter. Experiment can verify it only roughly. It rests, according to 
Maxwell, on foundations deeper than experience. Yet it is not a priori, 



212 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

but " plausible," that is, intermediate between a priori and a posteriori, as 
just explained. Lastly, the Principle of the Conservation of Energy is not 
proved experimentally. The constant dissipation of energy renders such 
proof impossible ; and we do not even know all the forms of energy. 
M. Poincare has remarked on the tendency to reduce the Principle of the 
Conservation of Energy to " a kind of tautology ," formulating that " there 
is something which remains constant." The spirit of the Principle of 
Identity is manifest. Descartes based the conservation of energy directly 
on the immutability of God. So did Joule, who argued that the power 
with which God had endowed matter could not be added to or diminished. 
Remembering that to Descartes and Joule " God " was the symbol of the 
general order of nature, of the essential immutability of things, these views 
confirm the role which the Principle of Identity plays in that of the 
Conservation of Energy, which is thus made " plausible." 

One striking result of the influence of the Principle of Identity is the 
tendency to eliminate time. In Chemistry, for instance, it is assumed, to 
start with, that there are so many essentially different and unalterable 
elements. Strictly speaking, the sign =, in chemical equations, does not 
imply equivalence. Its legitimate meaning would be expressed more 
accurately by -, because a chemical equation only represents the transition 
from the term on the left to that on the right side of the equation, the 
process being irreversible. " Le chimiste qui, dans un laboratoire, tente 
de refaire une operation de chimie organique un pen compliquee sait quelle 
ironie cache bien souvent ce signe d'egalite." Unconsciously, however, the 
sign = does express the belief or hope that the related terms are at bottom 
identical. And when this process of equating is carried to its logical 
conclusion we arrive at the conception of a Totality which persists un- 
changed throughout time, and to which time is, consequently, of no account. 
At this stage Causality itself disappears, and we have a kind of Sphere of 
Parmenides, to which, in fact, the Nebular Hypothesis bears some 
resemblance. 

Just as the Principle of Identity tends towards the elimination of Time, 
so the conception of the Unity of Matter tends towards the elimination of 
Space, which is supplanted by, or identified with, Matter. Although no 
experiments necessitate the abandonment of the fixity of the several 
chemical elements, and although it is actually easier to explain chemical 
phenomena by reference to a multiplicity of ultimately heterogeneous 
elements than by reference to one kind of element only, yet there is a 
decided tendency in the latter direction. The air is full of " transmuta- 
tions " of elements. The unity of matter is, in fact, the secret postulate 
of all atomism. Matter is by degrees refined away into an ether whose 
properties are those of vacuum. The position that confronts us then is 
this : Causality explains away all " becoming " or change, by finding the 
persistence of the cause in the effect. The Unity of Matter explains away 
"being" by reducing even ultimate, immutable reality to space. The 
world seems emptied of its content ! But reality resists this strange 



; 



r" 

* 



IDENTITY AND REALITY 213 

culmination of Mechanism, and the Principle of Identity which prompts 
it. And this revolt of nature is embodied in the Principle of Carnot. 

This principle voices the claims of change, of evolution in one irrever- 
sible direction. Its very form is significant. Most physical laws are in 
the form of an equation ; they express equality, for they express the tendency 
towards identity. The Principle of Carnot is expressed in the form of an 
inequality, because it proclaims the reality of change. And this self- 
assertion of Change seems such a stumbling-block to scientific explanation 
that attempts have been made to explain it away by means of the con- 
ception of periodicity, which would bring change itself within reach of the 
principle of Identity. And here we may note the paradox of explanation. 
Phenomena changing with time, and in one irreversible direction, are 
explained causally, that is, as identical in time, although the flux seems 
more obvious and more important for us to know. By accepting the 
principle of Carnot, however, science comes under the direction of both 
principles Identity and Change. The principle of Change controls the 
purely " legal " part of science, the discovery of uniformities ; the principle 

Identity is at the basis of all causal explanations. 

Sensations are considered next. According to Mechanism these are 
subjective and epiphenomenal. After depriving reality of all equalities, 
no room is left for sensations. But then Mechanism is left in this extra- 
ordinary plight : the phenomena of change, of which it purports to be 
the ultimate explanation, are in the first instance our sensations ; if, then, 
our sensations are nothing, Mechanism itself is an explanation of nothing ! 
The fact is that sensations defy mechanical explanation. The relation 
between sensations and their physical stimuli is unintelligible, " irrational." 
Sensations are outside the mechanical system. But even within the 
ystem there are " irrational " factors. The action of one body on 

other is ultimately as unintelligible as is its action on the senses. This 
-ct received due recognition in Occasionalism. Mechanism thus involves 
wo " irrationals," one subjective, the other objective. In reality nothing 

gained by reducing the " theological " causality of the free-will to the 
ientific causality of one material body acting on another. 
Turning to non-mechanical theories of nature, that is, theories which 

sit the ultimate reality of certain qualities, without attempting to 

plain the " being " of these qualities, M. Meyerson shows the part played 
y the principle of Identity in these also, and then passes on to examine 
unconscious logic of common sense. The naive realism of common 

nse is prompted by the same motives which guide scientific theory. We 

perience sensations which do not altogether depend on our volition, and 
they recur in the same combinations after the lapse of an interval. 
Prompted by the tendency towards causal explanation, we hypostatise these 
sensations as qualities and things supposed to persist in time, and to 
stimulate these sensations of ours. The scientist, it has been said, makes 
scientific facts out of brute facts. This is true, but the scientist is only 
ying further the same process whereby common sense makes its brute 



214 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

facts. At bottom, brute facts, like scientific facts and theories, are only 
causal hypotheses. 

Limits of space do not permit us to follow M. Meyerson any further. 
Already one may see more difficulties raised than solved. And his treat- 
ment of sensation and common sense is provoking. It would surely be far 
more accurate to treat sensations as the subjectification of qualities than 
to treat qualities as the hypostases of sensations. In any case no such 
process is carried out consciously. To say that this hypostasis takes place 
unconsciously can only mean that it is logically involved in our appre- 
hension of reality. But is it ? Is it not simpler, and no less justifiable, to 
assume that somehow we do apprehend reality directly, and just as it is ? 

However, although there are various points on which one may not agree 
with M. Meyerson, the book will be found none the less interesting and 
suggestive. Nor is M. Meyerson unprepared for differences of opinion. 

A. WOLF. 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. 



Father and Son. London : Heinemann, 1907. 

THE author of this book, a well-known literary man. whose name is no 
secret, has imposed upon himself a most difficult and delicate task. He 
has told us the story of his relations as an only child to a father who was 
entirely devoted to his son's eternal interests. The story is a very tragic 
one, for by the time or before the time when the son reached manhood, 
father and son had drifted hopelessly apart in those matters on which the 
father's interest was concentrated. The plot works itself out by an 
inexorable fate, and neither is at all to blame. Almost the last words of 
the book, the very last words recorded of the father, are terrible in their 
intensity of pain : " If this grace were granted to you " the grace, that is, 
of return to the religion of his early days "oh! how joyfully should I 
bury all the past, and again have sweet and tender fellowship with my 
beloved son, as of old." Now, most people will feel at once that relation- 
ships of this sort, complete and enthusiastic communion in the highest 
things, ending in no less complete estrangement, are too sacred and 
intimate to be spoken of, far too sacred and intimate to be set in print 
and revealed to the public. This objection is strengthened by the fact 
that the account of the society in which the writer was bred contains many 
incidents, many even of the father's sayings and doings, which are 
ludicrous in the highest degree. Moreover, they lose nothing in the 
telling, for the book is pervaded with the keenest sense of humour and the 
narrative never fails in picturesqueness and dramatic power. Yet after all 
we are convinced that Dr Gosse, for we need no longer scruple to give the 
author his real name, has been well advised to write the book. We believe 
that it will hold an abiding place in literature as an honest, faithful, 



FATHER AND SON 215 

powerful record of spiritual life. It was not right that such classic and 
typical portraiture should be withheld from the world at large. Nor are 
the evils of publication such as might have been feared. They have been 
avoided by the exquisite tact and the fine feeling of the narrator. If we 
laugh sometimes at the father's simplicity, we never lose our respect, we 
may add, our love, for him. From first to last he is exhibited in his genuine 
character, as a noble and high-minded gentleman, one of whom a son may 
well be proud. Whatever the defects of his religion may have been, he at 
least held it with profound sincerity and moulded into strict accordance 
with it the minutest details of his daily life. 

The author's father and mother married late in life, some sixty years 
ago. He was a distinguished naturalist, though his numerous books, despite 
their high repute, brought him little money. She had written a volume of 
religious verse, which had enjoyed some slight success in its day, and has 
long since been forgotten. Both had joined a hyper-Calvinistic sect, 
calling itself the "Brethren, 1 " 1 and known to the outer world as the 
Plymouth Brethren." They had no paid ministry, but met every Sunday 
lorning for prayer and exhortation, and for the "breaking of bread." 
Meetings of an evangelistic kind were held in the evening, and the elder 
Mr Gosse preached twice every week in a hired hall at Hackney. From 
the time of his birth their only child was dedicated to God. " We have 
given him,"" so the mother wrote in her diary, " to the Lord ; and we trust 
that He will really manifest him to be His own, if he grows up ; and if the 
Lord take him early, we will not doubt that He has taken him to Himself." 
She goes on to express a natural and touching hope that if their child be 
called away early, " we may be spared seeing him suffering in lingering 
illness and much pain." She adds, however, " In this as in all things His 
will is better than what we can choose." She herself was to die after 
lingering agony of cancer, a fate which she bore with heroic fortitude. 

The boy was chiefly educated by his parents. All works of fiction, nay, 
even the improvised stories in which children delight, were rigidly pro- 
hibited. To a large extent the imagination was left uncultivated, with 
the natural result that their child tended to become "positive and 
sceptical." Most of the day the father was hard at work, earning a scanty 
maintenance by his books and essays on natural history. Still the father 
found time for much converse with his son. Indeed, the religious instruc- 
tion which he gave was "incessant," and was "founded on the close 
inspection of the Bible, particularly of the epistles of the New Testament."" 
It is interesting to learn that the " Epistle to the Hebrews," which the 
father read and expounded to his little pupil, verse by verse, were "his earliest 
initiation into the magic of literature." He never forgot "the extra- 
ordinary beauty of the language, the matchless cadences and images of the 
first chapter." Side by side with this literary attraction, there occurred a 
curious instance of the sceptical spirit to which we have just referred. 
Assured by his father that God " would signify His anger if anyone in a 
Christian land bowed down to wood and stone," he deliberately put this 



216 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

assertion to the test by offering solemn and explicit worship to a wooden 
chair. He did so with a " trembling heart," but nothing happened, and 
he came to the conclusion that his father " was not really acquainted with 
the divine practice in cases of idolatry. 1 ' Here we may add that the son 
was isolated, not only from converse with persons who were indifferent to 
religion, but also from almost all religious people outside of that small and 
fanatical community known as "the Brethren." Roman Catholics, as a 
matter of course, were looked upon as blind idolaters, and the Pope was 
that man of sin whom the Lord would shortly " destroy with the brightness 
of His coming."" Socinians at the other pole of religious thought were, if 
possible, in still more helpless plight. Nay, the Church of England was 
but " a so-called Church,"" and there was scant reason to believe that many 
of its clergy or laity were "saved." Even Dissenters, as a rule, were 
dangerously lax. This last point is illustrated by an amusing incident. 
The Browns, a family of Baptist drapers, invited young Gosse to " tea and 
games." The father, dreading this allurement of secular dissipation, invited 
his son to lay the matter " before the Lord " in his study. After vocal 
prayer in which the parent called the attention of the Deity "to the snakes 
that lay hid in evening parties," and a pause of silent expectation, the 
father said : " Well, and what is the answer which the Lord vouchsafes ? " 
" The Lord says, I may go to the Browns." " My father gazed at me in 
speechless horror : he was caught in his own trap : yet surely it was an 
error in tactics to slam the door." 

Here, however, we have been anticipating. Before the incident just 
related, the mother had died ; the little family, now in easier circumstances, 
had gone to a new and very pleasant home in Devonshire, and just when 
he was ten years old, the boy testified by receiving baptism, and was 
admitted to the " breaking of bread." Such young discipleship was quite 
unprecedented, and created immense excitement among "the Brethren." 
But the father, with almost incredible imprudence, declared in his son's 
presence and before the whole congregation that his son " was an adult 
in the knowledge of the Lord," and " possessed an insight into the plan 
of salvation which many a hoary head might envy for its fulness, its 
clearness, its conformity with Scripture doctrine." There was at first no 
small opposition but it was borne down when two elders had testified, after 
separate and united conference and examination, to the precocity of the 
young disciple. He was the hero of the hour. " When I am admitted to 
fellowship, papa, shall I be allowed to call you beloved brother ? " " That, 
my love, though strictly correct, would hardly, I fear, be thought judicious." 
When the immersion took place, there were indeed other candidates, but 
the boy attracted all the attention to himself. The blaze of lights, the 
pressure of hands, the ejaculations and tears with which he was led to the 
front row of the congregation, made the scene a dazzling one for him, and 
nobody will be surprised by his confession that " he was puffed up by a 
sense of his own holiness," " haughty with the servants," " insufferably patron- 
ising " with his companions. On one occasion at least his demeanour was 



FATHER AND SON 217 

worse than " patronising, 1 ' for, alas ! during a service in the public room he 
put out his tongue in mockery, to remind the other boys that " he now 
broke bread as one of the Saints, and that they did not." His father 
himself had to suffer from the airs which his son now assumed. He 
married a second time, choosing as his partner an excellent and kindly 
lady to whom both he and his son were deeply indebted. When he 
announced this intention the son, by a curious reversal of the natural order, 
proceeded to cross-examine his father with uplifted finger. " But, papa, is 
she one of the Lord's children ?" "Has she taken up her cross in 
baptism ? " " Papa, don't tell me that she's a pedobaptist." He had but 
lately found out the meaning of that learned term, and was charmed to use 
it in this remarkable way. His father seems to have satisfied him on the 
whole, though allowance had to be made for a lady whose sad misfortune it 
was to have been educated in the national Church, and whose views were not 
yet quite as clear and scriptural as her stepson might have desired. After 
all, she had left the Church for the meeting, and did, after some hesitation, 
see the Lord's will in the matter of baptism." 

We are not told much of the process by which the son, after settling in 
mdon at the age of seventeen, cast off the shackles by which he had been 
md from his earliest childhood. Apparently the change came gradually 
id almost imperceptibly. His old beliefs crumbled and fell without 
ipparently any open and direct attack. It became impossible for him any 
longer to dismiss the beauty of art and the ennobling influences of literature 
secular and profane. A God whose love was limited to a small portion 
>f mankind, united by common theory and common discipline, was plainly 
God at all. It might be urged, and with justice, that Evangelical 
ligion, especially as it has been held within the Church of England, is 
)t responsible for the narrow prejudices and fanaticism of the "Plymouth 
Brethren." Still it is true that Evangelical religion in all its forms has 
too intellectual. It has insisted on the acceptance of theories with 
aspect to the Fall, the Atonement, conversion, etc., which, whether they be 
or no, are matters of intellectual apprehension, and depend on acuteness 
)f mind rather than on spiritual experience. Religion nowadays tends more 
id more to revert to the Christianity of St John : " God is love." " Love is 
God : and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God." No 
loubt it also is a very grave defect in the religion of the Plymouth sect, as 
ascribed in this book, that it laid so little stress on the duty of promoting 
le moral and physical improvement of mankind. Surely, however, it 
is a most gross exaggeration to bring this charge against Evangelical 
religion as a whole, or to say that, when Bossuet insisted that we must 
listen " to the cry of misery around which should melt our heart," he 
" started a new thing in the world of theology." What of St Francis, or 
of St Vincent of Paul, or of St Camillus of Lellis ? Was it from Bossuet 
that the English Evangelicals learned to do that noble work for the slave 
and the prisoner, for the ignorant and depraved, to which Mr Lecky has 
borne such eloquent and weighty witness ? Even in its dreariest days the 



218 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Church, whether Roman or High Church or Evangelical, has never quite 
forgotten the saying of the Son of Man: "Forasmuch as ye have done it 
unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."" 

W. E. ADDIS. 
OXFORD. 



I^e Pragmatisjue, Etude de ses diverses formes^ anglo-amerwaines, fran- 
$aises et italiennes et de sa valeur religwme. Par Marcel Hebert, 
Professeur a TUniversite Nouvelle de Bruxelles. Paris : Emile 
Nourry, 1908. 

PRAGMATISM neglects or obscures a fundamental element in human con- 
sciousness, the sense of subjective and objective reality, which is at the 
root of all philosophies, Idealist and Realist, and which is postulated by 
that common-sense outlook upon the world which Pragmatism professes 
to include in its system. It must be admitted that the mind can only 
know its own sensations, and these only through its categories. In this 
sense it makes its own truth, but in so doing it is bound to posit an external 
reality to which in some sense its categories conform. Mr Schiller says we 
can know nothing certain about this ultimate reality, and that therefore 
this question may be left to Metaphysics, which Pragmatism does not 
profess to meddle with. From the Humanist standpoint we can only make 
our own truth and our own reality, and this we effect by categories which 
we choose because it is found in practice that they " work. 1 " 1 

Pragmatism, however, has not left the metaphysical question alone. 
It has already prejudged the question by denying to external reality any- 
thing but a purely passive existence. It is a " chaos " until ordered by 
mind, not an activity producing certain effects which mind reacts upon and 
interprets. Nor does Mr Schiller thus escape the metaphysical difficulty, 
for if the mind is incapable of judging as to the nature of external reality, 
on what grounds can even such a " chaos " be posited ? It is true that Mr 
Schiller seems to realise the unsatisfactory state in which he leaves the 
question. But then, if he must theorise about it at all (and it is certainly 
difficult to avoid doing so), why not at least choose a theory which accords 
better with the elementary facts of consciousness ? 

In the cognate question, as to the nature of truth, he is not more 
successful. The correspondence-theory need not go beyond phenomena, 
and to these it is strictly applicable. Even if it be granted that we can 
know nothing as to the ultimate nature of things, yet the objectivity of 
truth is implied in the necessary postulate that there is a certain sequence 
and co-existence in phenomena which is independent of the individual 
mind. It is true that there is no absolute standard by which the correct- 
ness of such correspondence can be judged. " Doubtless," says M. Hebert, 
" the thing in itself cannot be compared with the knowledge of it as the 
model with its portrait, but what I do not allow is that there can be no 



PRAGMATISM 219 

likeness between two of our representations ; for example, between that of 
the cathedral at Paris, of which I have the photograph before me, and the 
impression of it which I shall receive when I go to visit it. Similarly, the 
picture, which I have formed in my mind's eye, of primitive man and the 
way he used the flint, either resembles or not the impression I should 
have received if I could have been an eye-witness of this phase of the 
evolution of our race. There is, then, in such a case, resemblance, if not 
4 adaequatio. 1 " 

Individual impressions and theories must be corrected or confirmed 
by the combined critical action of many minds before they can be accepted 
as objective and universal truth. So far the Pragmatist contention holds 
good that truth is made by man, but not that it is merely determined by 
utility. As M. Hebert says, there is this aspect of knowledge, but it is 
not the only aspect. Pragmatism, in limiting knowledge to this aspect, 
ignores a fundamental " working " postulate not only of Metaphysics but 
of Science, and by so doing stultifies itself. This postulate, moreover, 
inevitably leads us back to the question as to the ultimate nature of reality 
on which this assumed correspondence is based. 

Critical philosophy and modern psychology have done much to reduce 
the extent of the a priori element in thought, but this element cannot be 
banished altogether, or ignored, as Pragmatism apparently seeks to do. 
Even if it has been evolved in the whole course of the development of 
mind from its lower forms, the explanations which Pragmatism offers of 
this development seem very inadequate, and, in any case, its origin does 
not destroy its significance. M. Hebert is wrong, however, in denying the 
supreme importance of Will as the fundamental directing agency of 
intellect and feeling, a truth admitted by St Thomas Aquinas in a quota- 
tion given by himself. Yet Pragmatism has exaggerated the principle of 
Voluntarism, at least as a positive principle of action. Its negative value 
is not even considered, and yet this is at least equally important in Science 
and Philosophy. It is the Will which first directs the mind to its objective, 
yet every critic or scientist worthy of the name knows well enough that 
one of the chief functions of the Will, acting with the Reason, is to control 
the feelings and check the desire to obtain results in accordance with 
theory. Now, Pragmatism, as expounded by Messrs William James and 
Schiller, makes such purposeful seeking for results the chief, if not the 
only, principle of scientific action ; whereas it needs to be strictly sub- 
ordinated to the desire for truth for its own sake. Instead of recognising 
that the personal equation must be kept as far as possible in the back- 
ground, Pragmatism elevates it into a kind of first principle of research. 

In its affirmations, as M. Hebert truly observes, Pragmatism is right ; 
in its denials it is wrong. For, in spite of the disclaimers of its chief 
exponents, it tends to turn what is legitimate and even necessary as a 
method into an exclusive system of philosophy ; and, considered from this 
point of view, its claim to kinship with antiquity, with Kant, and with 
modern French philosophy, is, as he shows, unfounded. 



220 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

In his chapter on religious Pragmatism M. Hebert falls into the common 
error of identifying the truths of history with those of faith. It is a 
theory which, in the past, has had lamentable consequences for both, and 
in the present has become quite unworkable. 

H. C. CORRANCE. 
HOVE. 



The Apocalypse of St John. The Greek Text, with Introduction, Notes, 
and Indices. By Henry Barclay Swete, D.D. London : Macmillan 
& Co., 1906. 

OF the learning, scholarship, and pains which have been lavished upon 
this volume there can be no doubt. Whether it also displays the qualities 
which are requisite for success in the Higher Criticism is a different 
question. The general attitude assumed by Dr Swete is that of an 
enthusiastic apologist. For this we can no more quarrel with him than 
with an advocate for making the best of his case, especially as we can well 
believe that Dr Swete is himself genuinely convinced of the high character 
of his client. 

The criticism of the Apocalypse presents this singular phenomenon, 
that the orthodox and traditional date assigned to the book, namely, at 
the close of the reign of Domitian, is the later one, whereas the innovating 
view puts it back before the destruction of Jerusalem into the reign of 
Vespasian or Nero. Dr Swete is rightly, I think in favour of the 
traditional view. But the other possessed great attraction for those who 
were anxious to refer to the son of Zebedee everything which went under 
the name of John. For while it was manifestly impossible to regard both 
the Gospel and the Revelation as the work of the same author at the 
same time of life, it seemed more feasible to suppose that the Son of 
Thunder had fulminated his truculent Revelation at an earlier stage of 
his career, and had afterwards mellowed with age into the benign Apostle of 
Love, when his Greek also had been improved by a long residence at 
Ephesus. Dr Swete, indeed, warns us (p. clxxx) that " the question of the 
authorship of the Apocalypse must not be complicated by considerations 
connected with the still more vexed question of the authorship of the 
Fourth Gospel." It is not easy to follow this admonition, seeing that 
from the earliest times the two books have been ascribed to one man. 
Still let us do our best to isolate the question of the authorship of the 
Apocalypse. 

The book declares itself to be the work of one John, who nowhere 
claims to be an Apostle in the way that is done by Peter and by Paul. 
He speaks in one passage (xxi. 14) of the holy city Jerusalem, that came 
down from heaven, having twelve foundations, and on them the twelve 
names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. But there is no suggestion 
that one of those names is his own. Who then is this John who wrote 



THE APOCALYPSE 221 

the Apocalypse ? He tells the Seven Churches of Asia (xix.) that he is 
their " brother and partaker with " them " in the tribulation and kingdom 
and patience which are in Jesus " ; also that he was then in the island of 
Patmos, " for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus, 11 and that, 
being " in the Spirit on the Lord^ Day," he heard and saw the things 
which he wrote to the Churches. It is evident from this that the writer 
was, above all things, a prophet. This point is well brought out by 
Dr Swete (p. xvi) : " Both in the prologue and in the epilogue, the work 
of John lays claim to a prophetic character ; and in the heart of the book 
the writer represents himself as hearing a voice which warns him, Thou 
must prophesy again. Moreover, it is clear that he is not a solitary 
prophet, but a member of an order which occupies a recognised and 
important position in the Christian societies of Asia. His ' brother 
prophets 1 are mentioned, and they appear to form the most conspicuous 
circle in the local Churches. 11 Thus the Pauline constitution of the 
Asiatic Churches was in abeyance, and the monarchical episcopate of the 
time of the Ignatian letters had not yet been introduced. Meantime, the 
prophets were in Jewish fashion the leaders. Just as Hermas was the 
prophet of the Roman Church, so John was the prophet of the Churches 
of Asia. This is all that we know of the author, except that he was a 
bigoted Jew, while, at the same time, he was a fervent follower of Christ. 
He is just such a leader as we might expect would arise long after all 
Asia had turned away from Paul. 

This brings us to a point on which I venture to think that Dr Swete 
has gone wholly astray. He everywhere speaks as though Jews were re- 
garded as enemies by the author of the Apocalypse (e.g. pp. Ixx, Ixxxix, xci, 
cxxiii). Is this likely in a book in which the world to come is constructed 
specially for the benefit of Jews ? Now this is a point of primary import- 
ance. If Dr Swete has gone wrong here, then, however much we may 
respect his learning, we must beg leave to doubt his judgment. Let the 
reader consider the question for himself. It turns upon what we under- 
stand by " the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and they are 
not, but are a synagogue of Satan " (ii. 9 ; cp. iii. 9). Are these the words 
of one who is denying Jews to be Jews? Or of one who is rejecting a 
claim to the honourable name of " Jew " on the part of some whom he 
deems unworthy of it ? 

Let us turn now to the linguistic aspect of the problem, on which 
Dr Swete has bestowed much care. " The Apocalypse, 11 he tells us 
(p. cxv), "contains 913 distinct words, or, excluding the names of persons 
and places, 871. Of these 871 words, 108 are not used elsewhere in the 
New Testament, and 98 are used elsewhere in the New Testament but 
once, or by but one other writer. 11 Dr Swete then appends a list of 108 
words in the Apocalypse which occur in no other New Testament writing. 
But from this list must be excluded /ce'pa?, which is to be found in Luke 
i. 69, and to it there should be added ap/coy, ey^piav, e\<f>dvTivo$, 
crrprjviav, xX/ceo?, all of which will be found in the Index 



222 THE HTBBERT JOURNAL 

of Greek words at the end, duly marked with the star which shows that 
they occur nowhere else in the New Testament. But the list of 108 words, 
according to Dr Swete's statement, ought not to include proper names, 
and it does include 5 (if, for the present purpose, we define a proper name 
as a word beginning with a capital), namely, 'ApaSSwv, 'ATroXXiW, "Ap, 
Maye&m/ (the last two being entered separately in the Index), Nj/coXouV*/?. 
For these and /cepa? let us substitute the 6 words supplied above, and we 
shall still have the 108 words other than proper names, which Dr Swete 
has told us we ought to have. 

In discussing the question whether there is any literary affinity between 
the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse, Dr Swete states the facts with 
perfect candour. He points out, to begin with, that there are only 8 
words, common to these two books, which occur nowhere else in the New 
Testament. But the only remark he makes is that " they do not supply a 
sufficient basis for induction," as if the inference to be drawn did not rest 
upon their fewness. The 8 words in question are apviov, 'EjSpafor/, 
KvicXeveiv, oijsi?, Trop<j>vpeo$, crKtjvovv, <j>oivt. Of these, KVK\veiv must be 
excluded, if we go by the Revisers 1 text (John x. 24) ; but, on the other 
hand, the same text omits SeKaros in Acts xix. 9, so that that word (John 
i. 39 ; Rev. xi. 13, xxi. 20) may take the place of KVK\evetv. Now, with this 
list of 8 words compare the 57 which occur in the New Testament only in 
the Third Gospel and Acts. Yet Dr Swete actually speaks of the evidence 
being divided. " If," he says (pp. cxxii, cxxiii), " we extend our examina- 
tion to words which, though not exclusively used in these books, are promi- 
nent in them or in one of them, the evidence is similarly divided. On the 
one hand, there are not a few points in which the diction of the Apocalypse 
differs notably from that of the Gospel ; the conjunctions dXXd, yap, ovv, 
which continually meet the reader of the Gospel, are comparatively rare in 
the Apocalypse ; evwiriov, a characteristic preposition in the Apocalypse, 
occurs but once in the Gospel ; the Evangelist invariably writes 
'le/oocro'Av/xa, the Apocalyptist 'Ie/oowraX>7yu ; the one chooses a/xj/o? when he 
is speaking of the Lamb of God, the other apviov ; to the one the Eternal 
Son is simply o Xoyo?, to the other the glorified Christ is o Xo'yo? rov Oeov. 
The Apocalyptist uses the Synoptic and Pauline terms 
KypvcrcreLV, K\rjpovojuLeiv 9 /meTavoeiv, /mvpTTiptov, 
iv, from which the Evangelist seems to refrain ; while on the 
other hand, as Dionysius long ago pointed out, of many of the key-words of 
the Gospel he shows no knowledge. On the other hand, the two books have 
in common a fair number of characteristic words and phrases, such as 
aXyOtvos, egovaria, /ULaprvpeiv, vticav, oSriyelv, olSa, orrjuaiveiv, rrjpeiv (\6yov, 
evroXriv), virayeiv. It is still more significant that both attach a special 
meaning to certain words ; both use 'lovSaios of the Jew considered as 
hostile to Christ or the Church, and in both such words as far], Oavaro?, 
St\fsav, Treivavy vv/uL<f>ri, Soga, bear more or less exclusively a spiritual sense 
a remark which applies also to several of the words mentioned above (e.g. 
VLKUV, 



THE APOCALYPSE 223 

On all questions of fact this presentation of the evidence is beyond 
reproach. But listen to the remarkable summing up which follows! 
" Thus on the question of the literary affinity of the Fourth Gospel and 
the Apocalypse, the vocabulary speaks with an uncertain sound, though 
the balance of the evidence is perhaps in favour of some such relationship 
between the two writings." " Some such relationship " must mean that 
there is a literary affinity between the two writings ; whereas, if anything 
in literary criticism is certain, it is certain that there is not. In saying 
this, I mean that on grounds of literary criticism it is impossible to ascribe 
the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse to one and the same author. 
What Dr Swete means by "a literary affinity" it would be difficult to 
say precisely. But he is all the time of the same opinion which I have 
just expressed. "It is incredible," he says later, "that the writer of the 
Gospel could have written the Apocalypse without a conscious effort 
savouring of literary artifice " (p. clxxviii). And then he intimates that it 
is to him equally incredible that the writer of the Apocalypse should ever 
have come to write the Gospel. That the two books are not by the same 
author was clearly shown in the third century by Dionysius of Alexandria, 
and might by this time be taken for granted. 

What then is Dr Swete's opinion as to the authorship of the Apocalypse ? 
Here are his own words (p. clxxxi) : " While inclining to the traditional 
view which holds that the author of the Apocalypse was the Apostle John, 
the present writer desires to keep an open mind upon the question. Fresh 
evidence may at any time be produced which will turn the scale in favour 
of the Elder." But why should the authorship be assumed to lie between 
the Apostle and the Elder ? Were there no Johns but these two at the 
close of the reign of Domitian ? Dr Swete himself points out that some 
twenty-five persons of this name are mentioned in the Greek Bible, and 
seventeen in Josephus. 

Dr Swete has shown in a convincing way the literary unity of the 
Apocalypse (pp. xlii-xliv), and is perfectly justified in saying (p. xlvii) 
that "No theory with regard to the sources of the Apocalypse can be 
satisfactory which overlooks the internal evidence of its essential unity." 
But unity of authorship is quite compatible with inconsequence of thought, 
a fact which the seekers after " sources " seem to overlook. Dr Swete does 

best to minimise the inconsequence, but his attempt to read " some- 
like cosmic order and progress " into the chaos of the Apocalypse is 
best an ingenious failure. He would have done better to accept the 
analysis of Andreas, which is just such as any reader without a theory 
would be likely to make. In what intelligible sense can the Measuring of 
the Temple and the Two Witnesses be called a " preparation " for the 
Seventh Trumpet ? 

Space and time forbid the discussion of a number of interesting points. 
But we cannot close without some reference to Dr Swete's general view of 
the Apocalypse. He regards the book as being "in some respects the 
crown of the New Testament canon " (p. x). He tells us also that it is 



224 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

" a treasure of which the full value is even now scarcely realised " (p. cxiv). 
Even the obscurity of the work he regards as " not the least valuable of 
its characteristics, for it affords scope for the exercise of the Christian 
judgement "(p. cxxix). What kind of judgement is this? Evidently not 
a frankly human judgement. Perhaps, then, a judgement which is free, 
except in so far as some supposed necessities of Christianity are involved. 
Or is Dr Swete here speaking as in his note on p. 216, where he says : 
" As Arethas points out, the wisdom which is demanded is a higher gift 
than ordinary intelligence." If this be so, one had better hold one's 
peace. For ordinary intelligence would lead one to suppose that the 
" solemn claim to veracity " conveyed by the assertion, " These are God's 
words, and they are true," did " require belief in the literal fulfilment of 
the details " ; but Dr Swete assures us that " of course " it does not (p. 244). 
He holds up to our admiration the example of the great Dionysius of 
Alexandria, who " with the modesty of the true scholar " was " ready to 
attribute the difficulties presented by the Apocalypse to the limitations of 
his own understanding." It is seductive to think that, if one is modest in 
this matter, one may be pronounced a true scholar by so good a judge as 
Dr Swete, but it is well to remember that we might on the same principle 
be called upon to abase our intelligence before the Book of Mormon or 
Zadkiel's Almanac. 

ST GEORGE STOCK. 
OXFORD. 



The Terms Life and Death in the Old and New Testaments, and other 
Papers. By Lewis A. Muirhead, D.D. London : Andrew Melrose, 
1908. 

THE opening paper, which gives its title to this volume, was originally 
delivered before the Oxford Society of Historical Theology. The second 
and third, upon "Eschatology in the Consciousness of our Lord," were 
delivered as lectures at Durham, the second also appearing as an article 
in the recent Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels. The fourth is a survey, 
reprinted from the Review of Theology and Philosophy , of "Recent 
Literature on Jewish Eschatology, with special reference to the conscious- 
ness of Jesus." The eschatology of the primitive Church is perplexing 
enough, partly owing to the scantiness of the records, and partly owing 
to the heterogeneous character of the Jewish tradition. But the difficulties 
are heightened when the consciousness of Jesus is investigated in this 
province ; any student of this problem has become sadly accustomed to 
treatises which either develop bright speculative reconstructions of Christ's 
mind, or else fail to disentangle the ideas of Christ from the apostolic 
strata of the gospels. The modernisers evaporate, the verbalists petrify, 
the mind of Jesus on the future. Dr Muirhead has managed to avoid both 
extremes in his role of interpreter. He writes as a Christian scholar, and 
his Christian faith is as unobtrusive and genuine as his critical sagacity. 



This book is 



THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS 225 



iis book is not to be taken as a complete solution of the vital problem 
to which its three later sections are addressed. Its construction, for one 
thing, tends to suggestiveness rather than completeness of argument; 
the good things in it are scattered instead of being drawn together. But 
the patient, wise spirit which its pages breathe is a real contribution to 
the question, and there are bits of criticism and reflection to which one 
finds oneself turning back for further study. 

Dr Muirhead now accepts the " small apocalypse " theory of Mark xiii. 
(and parallels), on which formerly he hesitated (pp. 124 f.). " We think 
it unnatural to suppose that a person of such holy originality as Jesus 
spoke, when he dealt with the future especially with the future in which 
he had a unique personal interest in the style of a book of apocalypse." 
But that Jesus used the apocalyptic style at certain seasons or in certain 
moods of his life, Dr Muirhead has no doubt. Jesus believed in his 
Messianic calling. He predicted the near downfall of the Jewish nation. 
But " through the telescope of Jewish particularity he was looking out 
upon the whole human world "" (p. 70). The elusive element in all such 
sayings on the future is attributed in part to their aphoristic, pictorial 
character, in part to the fact that he was always laying a spiritual 
emphasis upon the religious certainty which these predictions expressed 
in the form of definite, temporal statements. This line of explanation is 
worked out tentatively but persuasively, upon the whole. We only wish 
that the author had taken space to apply it in detail to the gospel records. 
As it is, however, the mental poise of the discussion, with its combination of 
frankness and faith, is an admirable illustration of how an open-eyed Christian 
criticism of the gospels can do justice alike to the divine consciousness of 
Jesus and also to the limitations of his teaching in the evangelic records. 

There are many happy sayings thrown out in the course of these papers. 
Here are three, culled at random : " The correspondences of fulfilment to 
prophecy are largely contrasts, and the impressiveness of history is perhaps 
mainly due to these contrasts."" " The hope of God's people is doubtless a 
new world, but the heart of the new world is new men and women."" " The 
New Testament writings offer singularly convincing witness to the fact that 
the moral foundations, on which all that is best in our modern civilisation 
has been built, were in the first generation of Christians linked to a form of 
eschatological doctrine which, in one feature of it, had no relevance except to 
that generation." The attentive reader will find, before he reads this volume 
very far, that such sentences are more than the work of a phrase-maker. 

The book is designed, we are told in the preface, " mainly for young 
theological students, yet it will, perhaps, not be found on the whole too 
technical for laymen who are interested in theology."" One would feel 
more comfortable about its prospects of success, in the former quarter at 
least, were it less modest! The candid, unpretentious, and even naive 
character of some of its pages may hide from the aforesaid student the 
genuine ability of the writer to instruct even the youngest of his readers. 
But perhaps this is the vain fear of a reviewer who is ignorant that 
VOL. VII. -No. 1. 15 



226 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

theological students have added humility to their other virtues during 
the past fifteen years. Laymen, at any rate, need not be afraid that any 
undue " technicalities'" will trip them up in the study of the volume. 

Boussefs name is misprinted on p. 129, and "fallen"" (on p. 93) seems 
an awkward word, if it is not a misprint for " taken." 

JAMES MOFFATT. 
BROUGHTY FERRY, N.B. 



The Book of Exodus, with Introduction and Notes. By A. H. M'Neile, 
B.D. Methuen & Co. (Westminster Commentaries.) 

THE Hexateuch was lately called, to my knowledge, " a not very interesting 
part of the Bible." The author of this statement would probably agree 
with the opinion which Mr M'Neile has " heard seriously expressed," that 
Exodus is " one of the dullest books " of the sacred library. But he would 
be of a singularly stubborn and unreceptive mind if, after perusing the 
present work, he did not see well, as far as Exodus is concerned, to 
withdraw his remark and change his mind unreservedly. 

A good English commentary on Exodus, with up-to-date critical and 
archaeological matter, was needed, and Mr M'Neile has given us a good one. 
He attacks the problems of Exodus with critical boldness, but at the same 
time the spirit of religious earnestness is manifest throughout. In his 
remarks about the " miracles " of Exodus (pp. xcvii, cx-cxii, 43-46) the 
writer adopts the view that they "had a basis in 'natural' facts," and 
that the " wonderful element " consisted in the opportuneness with which 
they occurred. But this, after all, is merely to move the difficulty a step 
or two further back, and one cannot but ask why " natural " events should 
be invested with a miraculous character at all ? That the Hebrew writers 
chose to do so, that they loved to believe that the very elements had to 
render their ancestors service at God's command, that " the stars in their 
courses fought against Sisera," is one thing, but that we should accept this 
belief and persuade ourselves that God worked wholesale damage and loss 
of life in order to free His people, is quite another. The imaginative 
element which the writers introduced into their stories reaches its climax in 
the death of " all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of 
Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the first-born of the captive that 
was in the dungeon ; and all the first-born of cattle " (xii. 29), and 
Mr M'Neile admits (p. 46) that any thought of a " natural " event is here 
out of place. We are in the presence of miracle ! 

In the Introduction, which consists of one hundred and thirty-six 
pages, the writer treats of the analysis of the book, the laws, the 
geography, the historical and religious value, and other subjects, while 
there are several " Additional and Longer Notes " imbedded in the Text 
and Commentary. In our search for information Mr M'Neile does not 
often disappoint us, and he has given us so abundantly of his treasures 



BOOK OF EXODUS 227 

that one feels rather greedy in asking for more. But surely the phrases 
"of uncircumcised lips" (p. 36), and " move his tongue" (p. 61), require 
some explanation; and we are not told much about the "ban" (p. 135), 
and "the Hittites" are quite unnoticed (pp. 12, 13, 17). Attention 
should have been drawn, too, to the archaisms of the Revised Version, more 
especially as Dr Driver's Genesis gave such a good lead in this respect. 
A very short note suffices for the word " Hebrew " (p. 4), and does not 
contain any mention of the Habiri. The article by Spiegelberg in 
O.L.Z., Dec. 1907, might be read in this connection, and his reference 
to Knudtzon consulted. The statement on p. 76, " It is impossible, 
therefore, to uphold both the Biblical chronology and the identity 
of Amraphel and Hammurabi," must be modified by a reference to King, 
Studies in Eastern History, ii. p. 22 (1907), "Our new information 
enables us to accept unconditionally the identification of Amraphel with 
Hammurabi, and at the same time it shows that the chronological system 
of the Priestly Writer, however artificial, was calculated from data more 
accurate than has hitherto been supposed." In the note on " Cherubim " 
(p. 160) some reference to their supposed representation on the Altar of 
Incense discovered by Dr Sellin at Taanach is expected. As, moreover, 
Josephus (Ant. III. vi. 5) describes them as " winged creatures," it is hardly 
accurate to say that " as early as Josephus all knowledge of their appearance 
had been lost." 

The Bibliography (pp. XVII.-XX.), which, as the author remarks, 
" might be greatly enlarged," should have included Spiegelberg's interesting 
pamphlet Der Aufenihalt Israels in Aegypten (4. Auflage, 1904) ; Cheyne, 
Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel (1907) ; Stade, Biblische Theologie 
des Alien Testaments (1905) ; and Dibelius, Die Lade Jahves (1906). 

A few typographical slips have been noted. Paul Haupt (not Harper, 
as stated in the footnotes, pp. 89, 90) annotated the Song of Moses in 
the American Journal of Semitic Languages, and the correct title of 
ReicheFs book (p. 163) is Uber die vorhellenischen Gotterkulte. 

The volume includes a sketch of the tabernacle and a map of the 
country of the Exodus. 

P. J. BOYER. 

NORTHAMPTON. 



, 



lesiae Occidentalis Monumenta Juris Antiquissima, Canonum et Con- 
ciliorum Graecorum Interpret ationes Latinae . . . edidit C. H. Turner 
Tomi Secundi Pars Prior. Oxonii : e Typographeo Clarendoniano, 
1907. 



OF the first volume of Mr Turner's definitive edition of the Canons of the 
earliest Councils in Latin two portions of the first volume have appeared, 
containing the Apostolic Canons and the Canons of the Council of Nicaea. 
The remainder of volume one is still unpublished, and it is only because the 
now published part of the second volume has been in type for some con- 



228 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

siderable time that it has appeared before the concluding part of the first 
volume. It contains the Canons of the Councils of Ancyra and Neocaesarea, 
which are of great interest to the historian of morals. The title of the 
work as a whole is not sufficiently comprehensive, because it will include 
the Canons of Sardica, the original language of which is Latin, and it is a 
critical rather than a historical work. The editor justly considers that 
exact critical work must precede that of the historian : we may hope that 
he will undertake the latter office later, as no one is better fitted for it. 

Of the Canons of Ancyra and Neocaesarea six Latin translations in all 
are presented, with a double critical apparatus, one containing real 
manuscript variants, the other orthographical. Mr Turner has gone to the 
very oldest manuscripts, one being as old as the sixth century. Their 
excellence is not always in proportion to their age seventh and eighth 
century manuscripts are generally inferior in character to those of the 
fifth, sixth, and ninth centuries and there has therefore been considerable 
scope for emendation. Mr Turner, well acquainted with palaeographical 
possibilities as well as the Greek original of these versions, has proved 
himself always a skilful, sometimes a certain, emender. It is not, however, 
always possible to agree with his proposals : for example, on p. 226, vii., I 
should read multotiens as the rarer word (cf. p. 246, xiv., 1. 7), probably a 
colloquial formation on the analogy of aliquotiens ; again, on p. 236, x. title, 
destupratae would be nearer the corrupt distipulatae than is the simple 
stupratae ; it is true that the word is unexampled, but so are others in 
these translations (compare too constupro, obstupro) ; p. 30, ix., 1. 1, the 
reading of the manuscripts is best explained by the supposition that the 
orthography peccauitse for peccauisse intervened between the original 
peccauisse and peccauit. The notes elucidating the language are always 
useful, but the Latin Thesaurus should sometimes have been cited instead 
of Neue-Wagener's Formenlehre ; and Ronsch^s references might have been 
supplemented occasionally from later works for instance, on prode non 
fecerit (p. 91). The passage from Paulinus of Nola which he could not 
find (p. 31) is given by Georges as "epist. xi., 10." Mr Turner's own 
Latin is so good that we resent inceperat for coeperat (p. 53) ; correct also 
Monaci to Monachii (p. 135). 

These old translations are a valuable, and I think un worked, mine of 
vulgar Latin, and are of the greatest importance to Latin and Romance 
philologists. They add to the Latin vocabulary and to the known mean- 
ings of words, and illustrate besides the history of Latin orthography, in a 
way which will yet prove useful to editors of texts, both classical and 
Christian. It is to be hoped that at the end of the work Mr Turner will 
provide full vocabularies to increase its value. Reference must meantime 
be made to the valuable excursuses on the vulgar forms " grades," " partos," 
and "domos," as well as to the history of the forms "digamus" and 
" bigamus." 

ALEX. SOUTER. 
OXFORD. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

OF RECENT BOOKS AND ARTICLES. 



A RELIGION 1 Nature 2 Philos. 3 
Psychol. 8 Christianity 10 Nat. Relig. 
15 Relig. and Science. 

1 Michelet (G.) Une re"cente theorie fran- 
caise sur la religion. R. prat. d'Apologet. , 

May 15, June 1, and July 1, 1908. 
[Criticism of a sociological theory of religion 
which regards it as a function of the Society and 
denies the possibility of a religious psychology.] 

Spiller (Gustav) Faith in Man, the 

Religion of the Twentieth Century. 196p. 

Sonnenschein, 1908. 

2 Holland (Henry Scott} The Optimism of 
Butler's "Analogy." (Romanes Lecture, 
1908.) 48p. Frowde, 1908. 

[Butler appeals to us to go forward through 
Natural Eeligion to Revelation. He grounds 
himself on man's strength, not on man's weakness. 
He will have nothing to do with those who argue 
from man's blindness and Nature's darkness to 
the necessity of a Revelation to release us from 
despair.] 

Dresser (Horatio W.) The Philosophy 
of the Spirit : A Study of the Spiritual 
Nature of Man and the Presence of God, 
with a Supplementary Essay on the Logic of 
Hegel. 559p. Putnam, 1908. 

Gayraud (Abbe) Les vieilles preuves de 
1'eiistence de Dieu. 

Rev. de Phil., July, Aug. 1908. 

[An elaborate examination of a recent article 
by Le Roy.] 

3 Caillard (Emma Marie) Subjective 
Science in Ordinary Life. 

Cont. R., July 1908. 

[A plea for subjective science, the recognition 
by men of what they are, as a means of bringing 
about the revolution that is needed in modern 
life.] 

Moisant (Xavier) Psychologic de 1'In- 
croyant. (Bibliotheque Apologetique. ) 
339p. Beauchesne, 1908. 

[Book i. Le Railleur. Voltaire, his philosophy, 
criticism, morality, and polemical activity. 
Book ii. Pontivitm. Auguste Comte. Book iii. 
L'Intettectuel. Charles Renouvier. Conclusion.] 

4 Mitehell (Henry Bedinger) Talks on 
Religion : A Collective Inquiry. 325p. 

Longmans, 1908. 

[Record of a series of meetings held last winter. 
The company, drawn partly from among the 
Professors of a great university, partly from the 
business, literary, and ecclesiastic life of the city 
at large, represented many widely varying types 
of character and mental outlook.] 

Serol (Maurice) Le Besoin et le Devoir 
religieux. (Bibliotheque Apologetique.) 
216p. Beauchesne, 1908. 

[Seeks to ground religious obligation (i.) on the 
experiential basis of human nature and its 
present condition, and (ii.) on the ethical basis of 
a necessary pursuit of the good.] 

5 Hardy (T. J.) The Gospel of Pain. 

George Bell, 1908. 



8 Jevons (Frank B.) Hellenism and 
Christianity. Harvard Theol. R., April 1 908. 

[A very interesting and suggestive article. 
Hellenism endowed the ancient world with one 
culture, not provincial but a Weltkultur inspired 
with Greek thought and expressed in the Greek 
tongue. In Stoicism we see this new-created 
world becoming conscious of itself. By the Roman 
Empire it was unified into a political whole. The 
essential unity of the human race was brought 
into the full light of consciousness by Paul.] 

Franke (H.) Chris tlicher Monismus. 

323p. Hofmann, 1908. 

10 Bernies (V. L.) Dieu est-il? Etude 

critique sur la valeur de la demonstration. 

R. du Clerge fran9., July 1, 1908. 

[Deals with the objections to rational demon- 
stration of the existence of God arising from 
idealistic a-priorism and positivista-posteriorism.] 

Trevor (John) My Quest for God. 2nd 
ed. 275p. Postal Pub. Co., 1908. 

[This remarkable autobiography, from which 
Professor James quotes in the Varieties of 
Religious Experience, has been for long out of 
print. An interesting preface is added telling of 
the books that have influenced the author since 
the time when the autobiography first appeared.] 

G'Mahony (J.) On some Difficulties 
recently raised against the Argument from 
Design for the Existence of God. 

Irish Th. Q., July 1908. 

[Reply to Dr M'Donald's criticisms of the 
teleological argument in a former number.] 
15 Boutroux (ifanile) Science et Religion 
dans la philosophic contemporaine. (Biblio- 
theque de Philosophic scientifique.) 400p. 
Flammarion, 1908. 

[In this delightfully written book Professor 
Boutroux deals in Part i. with the tendency of 
Naturalism Comte, Spencer, Haeckel; in Part 
ii. with the tendency of Spiritualism Ritschl, 
W. James ; and in a concluding section insists on 
the value of the intellectual element in religion.] 

Francais (J.) L'Eglise et la Science. 
(Bibliotheque de Critique religieuse.) 
177p. Nourry, 1908. 

[Historical essay, exhibiting the constant 
opposition of the clerical party to scientific 
thought and progress. 

Keene (J. B.) The Problem of the 
Genesis of Life in Nature. 

New Church Rev., July 1908. 

[From a Swedenborgian standpoint.] 

Levi (E. ) La Religion de la Science. 

Ccenobium, May 1908. 

[Hitherto unpublished paper by Abbe A. L. 
Constant (1816-1873), who wrote under the above 
pseudonym and was expelled from the R.C. 
Church.] 

Chivalo (G.) L'Ipotesi dell' Evoluzione. 
Ccenobium, May 1908. 

[Setting forth critical objections.] 

Le Cornu (C.) Les idees de M. Emile 
Boutroux sur les rapports de la science et 
de la religion dans la philosophic con- 
temporaine. R. Claret., June, July 1908. 



229 



230 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



B BIBLE 1 Old Test. 5 New Test. 
9 Apocrypha. 

a Masterman (E. W. 0.) The Ancient 
Jewish Synagogues. Bibl. World, Aug. 1908. 
[Describing the ruins of them now found in 
Galilee. The writer hopes there is truth in the 
report that they are to be bought by Jews, other- 
wise they must rapidly disappear. Good photo- 
graphs are given.] 

r Jfuirhead (L. A.) The Terms Life and 
Death in the Old and New Testaments. 
150p. Melrose, 1908. 

[Seep. 224.] 

y M t Pheeters(n r . AT.) The Determination 
of Religious Value the Ultimate Problem 
of the Higher Criticism. 

Princeton Th. R., July 1908. 

Nippold (F.) Wechselbeziehungen 

zwischen jiidischer u. christlicher Theologie. 

Ztsch. f. wiss. Th., Heft 4, 1908. 

[Takes occasion, in noticing two works of 

Jewish Apologetic, by Friedlander and Giidemami, 

to lament the sharp antagonism between Jewish 

and Christian theological writers.] 

v Denk (J.) Burkitt's These: Itala 

Augustini = Vulgata Hieronymi eine text- 

kritische Unmoglichkeit. 

Bibl. Ztschr., Heft 3, 1908. 
la Hontheim (P. J.) Zu den neuesten 
jiidisch-aramaischen Papyri aus Elefantine. 
Bibl. Ztschr., Heft 3, 1908. 
Pope (F. H.) Israel in Egypt after the 
Exodus. Irish Th. Q., July 1908. 

[Giving the information recently brought to 
light by the papyri, of the settlement of refugee 
Jews in Egypt after Nebuchadnezzar's deporta- 
tion.] 

Macler (F.) Hebraica. 

R. de 1'Hist des Rel., Mar. 1908. 
[Summary of the finds in epigraphy, papyrology, 
etc., bearing on Hebrew literature.] 

k Thackeray (H. St J.) Renderings of 
the Infinitive Absolute in the LXX. 

J. Th. St., July 1908. 

p Baentsch (B.) Prophetie und Weissa- 
gung. Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol. , Heft 4, 1908. 
[Their relationship and psychological-historical 
source, as exemplified in the O.T. prophets.] 

Fullerton (K.) The Reformation Prin- 
ciple of Exegesis and the Interpretation of 
Prophecy. Amer. J. Th., July 1908. 

[The Reformation principle was interpretation 
by grammatico-historical sense, and gave way to 
post-Reformation doctrine of dogmatic inspira- 
tion. The process is now being reversed . ] 

q Smith (G. A.) Herr Alois Musil on the 
Land of Moab. Expos. , July 1 908. 

[Gives high praise and authoritative rank to 
this work of topography.] 

3p Diettrich (.) Die theoretische Weisheit 
der Einleitung zuni Buch der Spriiche, ihr 
spezifischer Inhalt und ihre Entstehung. 

Theol. St. u. Krit., Heft 4, 1908. 
[Exegesis, literary and textual criticism of 
Prov. i.-ix., which are regarded as an introduc- 
tion to the book.] 

V Boehmer (J.) Der Berg "Mis'ar" (Ps. 

xlii. 7). Theol. St. u. Krit., Heft 4, 1908. 

[The whole describes the region of the upper 

Jordan, and 1SSQ in = the little hill (i.e. the 
many hillocks or the district) in supplement and 
contrast to great Hermon.] 

4B Margoliouth (D. S.) Recent Exposition 
of Isaiah liii. Expos. , July 1908. 



H Bruston (CJiarles} Etudes sur Daniel et 
PApocalypse. Edition nouvelle. 88p. 

Fischbacher, 1908. 
[A careful piece of research.) 
Q Nicolardot (Firmin) La composition du 
livre d'Habacuc. 99p. Fischbacher, 1908. 
[A new translation and an elaborate critical 
discussion of the date, authenticity, and teaching 
of the book.] 

5k Moulton(J.H.)a.nAMilligan(G.) Lexical 

Notes from the Papyri. Expos. , July 1908. 

y Chapman (J.) Recent Works on the 

New Testament. Dub. R. , July 1908. 

[Gregory, Vogt, Lepin, Milligan, etc.] 
6 Mayor (J. B.) The Helvidian versus the 
Epiphanian Hypothesis. Expos., July 1908. 
[Reaffirming his opinion, against a writer in 
the Church Quarterly for April, that the 
"brethren of the Lord " were sons of Joseph and 
Mary.] 

Scott (E. F.) John the Baptist and his 
Message. Expos., July 1908. 

[Their significance, value, and relationship to 
Christ and his ministry.] 

Wendling(E.) Synoptische Studien. II. 
Der Hauptmann von Kapernaum. 

Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 2, 1908. 
[Concludes that Luke fashioned the story out 
of Matthew, where it is original.] 
r Andersen (A.) Zu der XuTpov-Stelle. 

Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 2, 1908. 

[These passages in the N.T. cannot be oiiginal ; 

they ure later derivations from Is. liii.] 

z Nicolardot (Firmin) Les ( proceds de 

Redaction des trois premiers Evangelistes. 

316p. Fischbacher, 1908. 

[We hope to review this book later.] 
A Ward (Caleb J.) Gospel Development: 
A Study of the Origin and Growth of the 
Four Gospels. 404p. 

Brooklyn, N.Y., Synoptic Pub. Co., 1907. 
[A serviceable popular introduction to the 
analytical comparative study of the Gospels. 
Contains also a " Harmony " in parallel columns, 
in which, by an ingenious use of eight kinds of 
type, the relations of similarity and divergence 
of each passage in any gospel to the corresponding 
passages in all the other gospels are exhibited to 
the eye at a glance.] 

C Mayer (Gottlob) Das Matthausevangelium 
in religiosen Betrachtungen filr das moderne 
Bediirfnis. 407p. Bertelsmann, 1908. 

[A series of short essays upon the gospel taken 
in sections, an attempt being made to bring out 
those implications of each section that bear upon 
modern needs and thoughts.] 
D Koch (H. ) Der erweiterte Markusschluss 
und die kleinasiatischen Presbyter. 

Bibl. Ztsch., Heft 3, 1908. 

[The enlarged ending referred to by Jerome, 

and now found in varied form in the C. L. Freer 

MS. , proceeds from the circle of the Asia-Minor 

presbyters.] 

E Burkitt (F. C.} and Brooke (A. E.) St 
Luke xxii. 15, 16 : What is the General 
Meaning ? J. Th. St. , July 1 908. 

[Regret that the desire was not to be fulfilled.] 
Gaussen (H.) The Lucan and Johannine 
Writings. J. Th. St., July 1908. 

(Adduces parallels in thought and expression to 
prove a bond more intimate than literary ac- 
quaintance between the two writers.] 
SpiUa (F. ) Der Satan als Blitz. 

Ztsch. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 2, 1908. 

[Lk. x. 18, Christ's answer to the report of the 

seventy. Satan's "falling from heaven" is his 

coming to thwart the work of the mission, in which 

attempt he has failed.] 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 231 



H Andersen (A.) Zu Joh. 6. 515 ff. 

Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 2, 1908. 
[This other bread (which Christ will give, and 
which is his flesh and blood, and which, being 
eaten, shall give eternal life) refers to the sacra- 
mental institution. The passage therefore is 
post-Ignatian.] 

Hart (J. H. A.) A Plea for the Re- 
cognition of the Fourth Gospel as an 
Historical Authority. Expos., July 1908. 
M Foster (F. ff.) The New Testament 
Miracles : An Investigation of their Func- 
tion. Amer. J. Th. , July 1908. 
[An inquiry as to whether, according to Scrip- 
ture the miracles did in fact "attest the great 
messenger of revelation." The answer is that 
such attestation was not a fact.] 

Owatkin(H. Jf.) The Raising of Lazarus : 
A Note. Cont. R., July 1908. 

[The notoriety of an event does not entitle us 
to say that St Mark was bound to record it, 
unless we can show that he made an object of 
omitting no such events. Burkitt silently assumes 
the contrary.] 

R Trench (0. H.) The Crucifixion and 
Resurrection of Christ by the Light of 
Tradition. 192p. Murray, 1908. 

[An attempt to give a clear and consecutive 
account of the events connected with the Passion 
and Resurrection of our Lord as recorded in the 
canonical gospels.] 

7 Eedfield ( Isabella T. ) A Reasonable Way 
to Study the Bible: The Acts of the 
Apostles, the Epistles. 158p. 

The Author, Pittsfield, 1907. 
[Questions on Paul's Life and Teaching, for 
Sunday-school teaching.] 

Jacquier (E.) Histoire des livres du 

Nouveau Testament. Tome troisieme. 

346p. Lecoffre, 1908. 

[This volume deals with the Acts of the Apostles 

nd the Catholic Epistles. Special attention is 

devoted to the question of the authenticity and 

historical value of Acts. Author of Acts taken 

to be Luke, the physician.] 

B Mackintosh (E.) Corinth and the Tragedy 

of St Paul. Expos., July 1908. 

[Attempts to construct the history of St Paul's 

relations with Corinth during his Ephesian 

ministry.] 

E Rutherford (W. G.) St Paul's Epistles 
to theThessalonians and to the Corinthians. 
With Pref. by Spenser Wilkinson. 92p. 

Macmillan, 1908. 

[A new translation of these Epistles by the 
,te headmaster of Westminster School. In the 
prefatory note an interesting account is given of 
the author, in which the writer has been assisted 
by Prof. W. P. Ker.] 

Jenkins (C.) Origen on 1 Corinthians iii. 
J. Th. St., July 1908. 
[Text and notes.] 

Du Base ( W. Porcher) High Priesthood 
nd Sacrifice : An Exposition of the Epistle 
the Hebrews. (The Bishop Paddock 
tures, 1907-8.) 248p. Longmans, 1908. 
JBurggatter (E. ) Das literarische Problem 
Hebraerbriefs. 

Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 2, 1908, 
[A spoken address, copied out and afterwards 
nt on to some Christian community.] 
Schulte (A.) In welchem Verhaltniss 
iht der Cod. Alex, zum Cod. Vat. im 
;he Tobias ? Bibl. Ztschr. , Heft 3, 1908. 
[The older text is in B, but possibility of inter- 
polation must be granted.] 



IT II 

late 



a Drdseke (J.) Zum neuen Evangelien- 
bruchstiick von Oxyrhynchos. 

Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol., Heft 4, 1908. 
[The text is a fragment of Apolliuarius of 
Laodicea.] 

C CHURCH 14 Social Problems, 20 
Polity, 42 Liturgical, 50 " Sacraments, 
60 Missions. 

1 Dulles (Allen Macy) The True Church : 

A Study (Historical and Scriptural). 319p. 

Revell, 1907. 

[A criticism of the Catholic position of which 
Gore and Moberly have been ardent defenders, 
that the Church has been from the beginning a 
society with a divinely appointed succession of 
those who are in "holy orders."] 

10 Bateman (Charles) Statistics of the 
Churches. Albany R., June 1908. 

20 Burnley (Bishop of) The Present State 
of Church Reform. 

19th Cent., July and Aug. 1908. 

21 Hill (David Spence) The Education and 
Problems of the Protestant Ministry. 94p. 

Clark University Press, 1908. 

Dykes (J. Oswald) The Christian Minister 
and his Duties. 371p. Clark, 1908. 

[Writes from the experience of a ministry of 
nearly fifty years. Author devotes considerable 
space to the conduct of public worship "a duty 
which in every non-liturgical service lays such a 
heavy demand on the officiating minister."] 
26 Monks (Gilbert) Pastor in Ecclesia : A 
Practical Study in the Art of Money- 
raising. 323p. Elliot Stock, 1908. 

[Preface by Dr Kitchin, Dean of Durham, who 
recommends the book as showing how the 
minister can get at the heart of his flock by 
calling on them to take part with him in good 
works.] 

53 Lilly (W. S.) The Coming Eucharistic 
Congress. Dub. R., July 1908. 

Bishop (W. C.) The Primitive Form of 
Consecration of the Holy Eucharist. 

Church Q.R., July 1908. 

[It was of the same general character as that 
now found in the Eastern liturgies institution, 
anamnesis, invocation.] 

Boudinhon (A.) Les origines de 1'Eleva- 
tion. 

R. du Clerge" fran9., June 1, July 1, 1908. 

[Translation of Father Thurston's articles in 
the Tablet, interesting for its discussion of the 
question of the consecration of the elements.] 
56 M'Kenna(P.) The Judicial Character of 
the Sacrament of Penance. 

Irish Th. Q., July 1908. 

[Attempts to establish such a character for the 
sacrament. ] 

60 Auzuech (C.) Le mouvement religieux 
dans 1'Inde. 

R. du Clerge frangais, June 1, 1908. 

Brown (J.) The Colonial Missions of 
Congregationalism : The Story of Seventy 
Years. 124p. Congregational Union, 1908. 

D DOCTRINE 10 " God, 22 Christ, 60" 

Eschatology, 70 Faith, 90 " Apologetics. 
D Anon. The Theology of the Keswick 
Convention. Church Q. R., July 1908. 

Far el (P.) Le fideisme est-il le port 1 

Rev. chret, Aug. 1908. 

[Applies to fideism what Sabatier applied to 

rationalism "in separating itself from Christ, 

Christian religion ceases to be positive, and tends 

to become an abstract and dead thing."] 



232 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



L "Persona." A New Gospel. 88p. 

Brentano, 1908. 

[The Spirit of Christ on Religious Subjects and 
on Social Topics.] 
L. B. What is Truth ? 131p. 

Elliot Stock, 1908. 

[A series of meditations, consisting chiefly of 
quotations.] 

2 Herbermann (C. G.) and others, eds. The 
Catholic Encyclopaedia. An International 
Work of Reference on the Constitution, 
Doctrine, Discipline and History of the 
Catholic Church. Vol. iii. Brow-Clancy. 
812p. Caxton Publishing Co., 1908. 

[Review later.] 
Lcbreton (J. ) Chronique the"ologique. 

R. prat. d'Apologet, June 15, 1908. 
[Devoted to Modernism, as exemplified in Loisy 
and Tyrrell.) 
Lcbreton (J. ) Chronique the"ologique. 

R. prat d'Apologet., July 15, 1908. 
[A summary of recent literature directed 
against Modernism.] 

Baylac (J.) Le Modernisme et ses ori- 
gines philosophiques. 

R. prat d'Apologet, July 1, 1908. 
Jounet (Albert) Le Modernisme et 
1'Infaillibilite. 40p. Nourry, 1908. 

[Attempts to find a via media,.] 
Author^ of " The Policy of the Pope." 
The Abbe Loisy and Modernism. 

Cont R., Aug. 1908. 

[What Loisy has done is to bring home to the 
mind of every Catholic, not that the title-deeds 
of his Church are defective or doubtful, but that 
they have mouldered away, and if brought into 
contact with the upper air will crumble and 
vanish as dust.] 

Tyrrell (George) Medievalism : A Reply 
to Cardinal Mercier. 210p. 

Longmans, 1908. 
[Review will follow.] 
17 Soter. Fede e Miracolo. 

Ccenobium, May 1908. 
[Miracle in the sense of divine intervention is 
absurd ; but ' ' the human brain is an inexhaust- 
ible generator of cosmic force, "and is to be the 
source of new power.) 
22 Crespi(A.) II Cristo di Alfredo Loisy. 

Ccenobium, May 1908. 

27 Le Breton (Paul) La Resurrection du 
Christ. (Bibliotheque de Critique religieuse.) 
lOOp. Nourry, 1908. 

[A critical examination of the evidence. Con- 
cludes that the resurrection of Christ is a fact 
which has never been historically proved, and 
never can be.] 

33 Harbin (Robert Maxwell) Health and 
Happiness ; or, An Analogical Study of Dis- 
ease and Sin. 184p. 

Griffith & Rowland Press, 1908. 
47 Coe (Q. A.) What does Modern Psych- 
ology permit us to believe in respect to 
Regeneration 1 Amer. J. Th., July 1908. 
65 Tolstoi (L. ) Lettre sur la vie future. 

R. du Christianisme social, July 1908. 
80 Barnes ( W. Emery') The Lambeth Con- 
ference and the ' ' Athanasian Creed." 

19th Cent, July 1908. 

90 Egerton (Hakluyt) Liberal Theology and 
the Ground of Faith : Essays towards a 
Conservative Re-statement of Apologetic. 
248p. Pitman, 1908. 

[Two essays. The first attempts to describe 
and estimate the ideas which characterise Liberal 
Theology, and to criticise the conceptions of 



uniformity which tend to predispose the modern 
mind against a miraculous religion. The second 
finds the ground of faith in the living Christian 
society and our experience of that society.) 

Lacger (L. de) De la modernit6 des 
apologies chretiennes au 2 e siecle. 

R. prat d'Apologet, June 1, 1908. 

E ETHICS. 1-9 Practical Theology, 
Christian Ethics, Transition to General 
Ethics, 10 Theories, 20 Applied Ethics, 
Sociology, 23 Economics, 27 Education. 

10 Mead (George H.) The Philosophical 
Basis of Ethics. Phil. R., Apr. 1908. 

[Proceeds on the conception of an evolution 
within which the environment that which our 
science has presented as a fixed datum in its 
physical nature has been evolved, as well as the 
form which has adapted itself to that environ- 
ment.] 

M'Taggart (J. Ellis) The Individualism 
of Value. Inter. J. Eth., July 1908. 

[Goodness and badness are individualistic in a 
way in which the existent reality which is good 
or bad need not be individualistic. If all existent 
reality forms a single unity, in which the unity 
is as real as the differentiations even in that 
case the goodness or badness to be found in that 
whole would not be a unity. It would be a multi- 
plicity of separate values. The universe as a 
whole is neither good nor bad.] 

Lloyd (Alfred H.) The Relation of 
Righteousness to Brute Facts. 

Inter. J. Eth., July 1908. 

[The relation of righteousness to the brute 
facts of life should be one of faith ; of the faith 
that realises itself in broad sympathy, in positive 
activity, and in deep humour.) 

FouUtee (A.) La volonte' de Conscience 
comme Base Philosophique de la Morale. 

Rev. Phil., Aug. 1908. 

[Author used the term Volontt de conscience in 
his recent work on the Morale des idtfs-forcct as 
the formula of the immanent basis of his 
theoretical and practical philosophy. He here 
replies to various objections and criticisms.) 

Millioud (M. ) La formation de 1'Ideal. 
Rev. Phil., Aug. 1908. 

Sharp (F. Chapman) A Study of the 
Influence of Custom on the Moral Judgment. 
(Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, 
No. 236.) 144p. Madison, 1908. 

Wright (H. W.) Evolution and the Self- 
Realisation Theory. 

Inter. J. Eth., April 1908. 

[The idea of evolution incorporated in the self- 
realisation theory furnishes just the aid needed 
to prevent its degenerating into a mere prudential 
calculus.] 

Laupts (Dr) Responsabilite ou R- 
activite ? Rev. Phil., June 1908. 

[Contends that the principle of social reaction, 
analogous to that of organic reaction, should 
replace the metaphysical notion of free-will in 
the legal treatment of crime.] 

Libby (Walter) Two Fictitious Ethical 
Types. Inter. J. Eth., July 1908. 

[Compares with the vehemently anti Christian 
ethical ideal of Nietzsche the moral ideal of " The 
Two Noble Kinsmen."] 

Pigou (A. C.) The Ethics of Nietzsche. 
Inter. J. Eth., April 1908. 

[Strength and energy is for Nietzsche theprimary 
quality of super-man. It is an essential ingredient 
in all real goodness. But it is not the only in- 
gredient. It is also necessary that there be no 
ouesidedness.) 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 233 



20 Oppenheimer (Franz) Moderns Geschichts- 
philosophie. 
Vierteljahrssch. f. w. Phil., xxxii. 2, 1908. 

[Discusses Lamprecht, Breysig, and Brooks- 
Adams.] 

Muirhead (J. H.) The Service of the State. 
Four Lectures on the Political Teaching of 
T. H. Green. 134p. Murray, 1908. 

{Aim of these lectures is to show more fully 
what the union of the theoretical and practical 
reason meant to Green himself, and by what 
potency in his ideas they have entered into the 
spirit of our own time, directing forces in thought 
and action.] 

Hobhouse(L. T.) The Law of the Three 
Stages. Sociological R., July 1908. 

[Finds that Comte's law expresses certain 
aspects of the movement of thought. Author 
suggests, however, considerable modifications. 
The first stage is not purely theological, and the 
second can hardly retain the name metaphysical.] 

Tupper (Sir C. L. ) Sociology and Com- 
parative Politics. Sociological R., Jul. 1908. 

[The scientific examination of political evolu- 
tion on the basis of ascertained facts ought to be 
one of the objects of Sociology.] 

Dickinson (G. Lowes) Machiavellianism. 
Albany R., Aug. 1908. 

[Every idealist, before he can get to work, must 
meet and wrestle with Machiavelli on the way. 
When he has broken the staff of that god, he 
may be fit to pass through the fire.] 

Herbert (Auberon) The Voluntaryist 
Creed (Herbert Spencer Lecture, 1906), and 
A Plea for Voluntaryism. 107p. 

Frowde, 1908. 

Kidd (Benjamin) Individualism and 
After. (Herbert Spencer Lecture, 1908.) 
36p. Clarendon Press, 1908. 

[Endeavours to exhibit the leading feature of 
our times as a movement of the world under 
many forms towards a more organic conception 
of society.] 

Stanton (Rossingtori) An Essay on the 
Distribution of Livelihood. 125p. 

Farwell, 1908. 

[This essay purports to set forward new prin- 
ciples of production and distribution, and to 
mathematically adjust population to the produc- 
tive organism.] 

Bureau (M.) La crise morale dans les 
societes contemporaines. 
Bull, de la Soc. fran$. de Phil., April 1908. 

M'Conncll (R. M.) The Ethics of State 
Interference in the Domestic Relations. 

Inter. J. Eth., April 1908. 

Webb (Sidney) The Necessary Basis of 
Society. Cont. R., June 1908. 

[The necessary basis of society is the formula- 
tion and rigid enforcement in all spheres of 
social activity of a National Minimum below 
which the individual, whether he likes it or not, 
cannot, in the interests of the well-being of the 
whole, ever be allowed to fall. The policy of 
the National Minimum translates itself into four 
main branches (a) of wages, (6) of leisure, (c) of 
sanitation, (d) of education.] 

Macdonald (J, Ramsiy) Socialism and 
Politics. Fort. R., June 1908. 

Hunter (R.) Socialists at Work. 374p. 
Macmillan, 1908. 

[An American work closely studying the facts of 
the Socialistic movement, with special treatment 
of Germany.Italy, France, England, and Belgium.] 

Jenks (Edward) Mr Mallock on Socialism. 
Albany R., June 1908. 

Crozier (J. Seattle) A Challenge to 
Socialism. IV. A Dialogue with Marx. 

Fort. R., July 1908. 



Box (E. Belfort) Socialism, Real and So- 
called. Fort. R., Aug. 1908. 

Egerton (H. ) Socialism and an Alterna- 
tive. Church Q. R., July 1908. 

[" Ethical Individualism " is the alternative.] 

Wells (H. Gf. ) My Socialism. 

Cont. R., Aug. 1908. 

[Defends the Samurai idea as sketched in the 
Modern Utopia.] 

Marriott (J. A. R.) The "Right to 
Work. " 1 9th Cent. , June 1 908. 

Ooddard (J. ) The Church and the Social 
Question. New Church Rev., July 1908. 

[Chiefly an exposition of two American books 
on the subject Shaler Matthews and Rauschen- 
busch.] 

Grossman (Mrs) Poverty in London and 
in New Zealand : A Study in Contrasts. 

19th Cent, July 1908. 

Hutchinson (J. G.) A Workman's View 
of the Remedy for Unemployment. 

19th Cent., Aug. 1908. 

Barry ( W. ) Forecasts of To-morrow. 

Quar. R., July 1908. 

[Discussion of works by Professor Petrie, Mr 
H. G. Wells, and W. Hentschel. All three hold 
civilisation to be in danger, and they fix on the 
same enemy the " wholesale " leveller who calls 
himself a democrat. It is urged that the 
Christian State, which would lay on property 
duties commensurate with opulence, and on 
anarchic freedom the yoke of the Gospel, is a 
way of salvation.] 

Askwith (G. R.) Sweated Industries. 

FortR., Aug. 1908. 

Crackanthorpe (Montague) Eugenics as a 
Social Force. 19th Cent. , June 1908. 

Jones (Russell Lowell) International 
Arbitration as a Substitute for War between 
Nations. 269p. Simpkin, Marshall, 1908. 

[Rector's Prize Essay at St Andrews, 1907. 
Professor Bosanquet writes a preface with a high 
commendation of the author's work.] 

Unwin (George) A Note on English 
Character. Inter. J. Eth., July 1908. 

Anon. Catholic Social Work in Germany. 
II. The " Autumn Manoeuvres." 

Dub. R., July 1908. 

Iqbal (S. M. ) Political Thought in Islam. 
Sociological R., July 1908. 

Carlton (Frank T. ) Is America morally 
decadent? Inter. J. Eth., July 1908. 

[It is not proven that the American people are 
entering upon a period of moral decadence.] 

Macnicol (N. ) The Future of India. 

Cont. R., July 1908. 

21 Heath (Carl) The Treatment of Homi- 
cidal Criminals. Inter. J. Eth., July 1908. 
23 Gide (C.) Le pouvoir de 1'argent. 

R. du Christianisme social, May 15, 1908. 

27 Durr (E. ) Einfuhrung in die Padagogik. 

288p. Quelle & Meyer, 1908. 

Johnston (Sir H. H.) The Empire and 
Anthropology. 19th Cent., July 1908. 

Gibon (F.) Les instituteurs sans foi, 
sans famille et sans patrie. 

R. prat. d'Apologet, Aug. 1, 1908. 

[Charging the secular schools of France with 
deliberate? and aggressive anti-religious, anti- 
moral, and anti-social teaching. Remarkable 
cases are cited and names of teachers given.] 

Lathbury (D. C. ) Equality and Element- 
ary Schools. 19th Cent., June 1908. 

A Catholic Outcast. Free Trade in 
Education. Fort. R., June 1908. 



234 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



Grove (Lady Agnes') The Meaning of the 
International Moral Education Congress. 

Fort R., July 1908. 

Mackenzie (J. S. ) The Problem of Moral 
Instruction. Inter. J. Eth., Apr. 1908. 

[Deals with the questions : (a) whether the 
principles of morality are sufficiently definite to 
admit of being taught to all children in a gener- 
ally acceptable form ; (6) admitting that they can 
be so taught, whether a sufficient number of 
suitable teachers can be provided.] 

Ramsay (Sir W. M.) The Carnegie 
Trust and the Scottish Universities. 

Cont. R., June 1908. 

Platt (H. R P.) Oxford in the Sixties. 
Cont. R., June 1908. 

28 Karnel (Aly Bey Fahmy) Discours 
Patriotique : Reponse au Rapport de Sir 
E. Gorst en 1907., 43t>. 

"L'Etendard Egyptien," 1908. 
Richet (Ch.) La Guerre et la Paix au 
point de vue philosophique. 

Rev. Phil, Aug. 1908. 

[The effort of philosophers ought to be directed 

to creating in the public mind the conviction that 

the enemy of man is not man, but ignorance of 

the forces of nature.] 

Cook (Waldo L.) Wars and Labour 
Wars. Inter. J. Eth., April 1908. 

Roberts (W. J.] The Racial Interpreta- 
tion of History and Politics. 

Inter. J. Eth., July 1908. 

29 Russell (Hon. Bertrand) Liberalism and 
Women's Suffrage. Cont. R., July 1908. 

Billington-Qreig (Teresa) The Rebellion 
of Woman. Cont. R., July 1908. 

Billington- Greig ( T. ) The-Sex-Disability 
and Adult Suffrage. Fort. R., Aug. 1908. 

Anon. Women and the Franchise. 

Edin. R., July 1908. 

[The " movement " has to be defeated ; and it 
will greatly tend to that defeat if the majority 
of wives and mothers can succeed In making 
their wishes known and their influence felt.] 

Harrison (Ethel B.) The Freedom of 
Women. 55p. Watts, 1908. 

[An argument against the extension of the 
suffrage to women, by Mrs Frederic Harrison.] 

Spender (Harold) The Revolt of Woman. 

Albany R., Aug. 1908. 

[A strain of inconsistency runs through the 

whole of our English treatment of women, both 

social and economic.] 

Ward (Mrs Humphry) The Women's 
Anti-Suffrage Movement. 

19th Cent., Aug. 1908. 

Lovat (Lady) Women and the Suffrage. 

19th Cent., July 1908. 

50 A Spectator. The Stage and the Puritan. 
Fort R., June 1908. 

98 Snowden (Philip) Socialism and the 

Drink Question. (The Socialist Lib. ) 205p. 

Indep. Lab. Party, 1908. 

[In favour of the municipalisation of the Drink 

Traffic.] 



F PASTORALIA. 2 Sermons. 

Cunningham ( W. ) The Cure of Souls. 
236p. Clay, 1908. 

[Lectures on Pastoral Theology largely histori- 
caldelivered in the Divinity School, Cambridge, 
Lent, 1908, and other addresses on missionary 
work, etc.] 



Trnherne ( Thomas) Centuries of Medita- 
tions. Now first printed from the Author's 
Manuscript. Edited by Bertram Dobell. 
372p. Dobell, 1908. 

[This work seems to have been intended as a 
manual of devotion for members of the Church of 
England.] 

2 Collyer (Robert) Where the Light 
Dwelleth. Sermons. With a Memoir by 
C. Hargrove. 353p. P. Green, 1908. 

Fillingham (R. C.) Sermons by a Sus- 
pended Vicar. 106p. Griffiths, 1908. 

["A modest attempt to popularise Modern- 
ism."] 

Campbell (R. J.) Thursday Mornings at 
the City Temple. 319p. Unwin, 1908. 

Ingram (A. F. Winnington) The Love 
of the Trinity. 328p. Gardner, 1908. 

[Addresses and answers to questions given at 
the Central London Mission.] 

Butcher (Dean) The Sound of a Voice 
that is Still : A Selection of Sermons 
preached in Cairo. Introduction by Mrs 
Butcher. 216p. Dent, 1908. 

Bannister (A. T.) Christianity and 
Social Problems. 60p. 

Hereford : Jakeman & Carver, 1908. 

[Six Lenten Sermon-Lectures on Christianity 
in its Practical Application, Christianity and 
Poverty, Christianity and Commerce, Christianity 
and Labour, Christianity and the Child, Applied 
Christianity at Work. In an; Introduction, the 
Bishop of Hereford warmly commends the book, 
which deserves to be widely read.] 



G BIOGRAPHY. 2 English. 

1 Gerard (J. ) Giordano Bruno. 

The Month, June 1908. 
[Intended to correct an uudiscriminating 
admiration.] 

ffolman (H.) Pestalozzi : An Account 
of his Life and Work. 322p. 

Longmans, 1908. 
Witt-Guizot (F. de) Montalembert. 

R. chret., June, July, 1908. 

Dartigue (H.) Auguste Sabatier a 

Strasbourg. R. chret., June, July, 1908. 

Dartigue (H.) Auguste Sabatier a 

Strasbourg (1869-73). 

R. chret., Aug. 1908. 

2 Minchin (Harry Christopher) Glimpses 
of Dr Thomas Fuller. (Born in June, 1608. ) 

Fort. R., July 1908. 

Mackie (Alexander), ed. James Beattie, 
"The Minstrel." Some Unpublished 
Letters. 

Aberdeen : " Daily Journal " Office, 1908. 

C. R. L. F. Mr Gladstone at Oxford, 
1890. 103p. Smith, Elder, 1908. 

Rait (Robert S. ) David Masson. 

Fort R., Aug. 1908. 

Raikes (Elizabeth) Dorothea Beale of 
Cheltenham. 432p. Constable, 1908. 



H HISTORY, x Persecutions C Chris- 
tian M Mediaeval R Modern 2 English. 

C Lawlor (H. J.) The Heresy of the 

Phrygians. J. Th. St., July 1908. 

(Their M on tan ism was of a different type (much 

less ascetic) from that of the West which was in 

fact Tertullian ism.] 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 235 



Bethune- Baker (J. F.) The Date of the 
Death of Nestorius : Schenute, Zacharias, 
Evagrius. J. Th. St., July 1908. 

Cumont (F.) Le tombeau de S. Dasius 
de Durostorum. 

Anal. Boll., fasc. iii. and iv., torn, xxvii. 

[A tomb recently discovered at Ancona as the 
place where the translated remains of the saint 
rest] 

Delehaye (H.) Une version nouvelle de 
la Passion de S. Georges. 

Anal. Boll., fasc. iii. and iv., torn, xxvii. 

[Contained in MS. 3789 of the Bib. Nat. of Paris. 
Text is given. The author concludes that it is a 
narrative (legendary) of the passion of St Gregory 
of Spoletum.] 

Delehaye (H. ) Les femmes stylites. 

Anal. Boll., fasc. iii. and iv., torn, xxvii. 

[From the Life of " S. Lazare le Galesiote," the 
author discovers that there were communities of 
Stylite women.] 

Goregaud (L.) Some Liturgical and 
Ascetic Traditions of the Celtic Church. 

J. Th. St., July 1908. 

[I., on Genuflexion.] 

Moretus (H.) De magno legendario 
Bodecensi. 

Anal. Boll., fasc. iii. and iv. , torn, xxvii. 

[Index and catalogue of MSS.] 

Peelers (P.) ,Le sanctuaire de la lapida- 

n de S. Etienne. A propos d'une 

ntroverse. 

Anal. Boll., fasc. iii. and iv., torn, xxvii. 

Referring to the controversy in the Revue de 

rient as to an alleged identification.] 

Poncelet (A.} Une lettre de S. Jean, 
veque de Cambrai, a Hincmar de Laon. 

Anal. Boll., fasc. iii. and iv., torn, xxvii. 

[Examined and found not authentic.] 

MacCaffrey (J.) The Origin and De- 

"opment of Cathedral and Collegiate 
pters in the Irish Church. 

Irish Th. Q., July 1908. 

the Church of St Patrick's period.] 
Gorres (F.) Papst Gregor I. der Grosse 
-604) und das Judentum. 

Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol., Heft 4, 1908. 
Robinson (Dean J. A.) Simon Langham, 
.bbot of Westminster. 

Church Q.R., July 1908. 
Souter (A.) Contributions to the Criti- 
im of Zmaragdus's Expositio Libri 
Comitis. J. Th. St., July 1908. 

R Berbig (A.) Fiinfundzwanzig Briefe 
des Kurfiirsten Johann Friedrich, des 
Grossmiitigen, aus der Zeit von 1545 bis 
1547. Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol., Heft 4, 1908. 
Kawerau (G.} Fiinfundzwanzig Jahre 
Lutherforschung, 1883-1908. 

Theol. St. u. Krit, Heft 4, 1908. 
[Second and concluding article.] 
S Harrison (Mrs Frederic] The Bastille. 

19th Cent., Aug. 1908. 
Maitland (F. W.) A Constitutional 
istory of England. 573p. Clay, 1908. 
[Professor Maitland delivered these lectures in 
'-1888, as Reader in .English Law at Cambridge. 
iy are edited by Mr H. A. L. Fisher.] 
Benn (A. W.) Modern England: A 
ord of Opinion and Action from the 
time of the French Revolution to the 
present day. 535p. Watts, 1908. 

[Emphasises the influence on thought and 
politics of rationalistic opinion.] 




Green (Alice Stopford) The Making of 

Ireland and its Undoing, 1200-1600. 527p. 

Macmillan, 1908. 

Swinny (S. H.) A Sociological View of 
the History of Ireland. 

Sociological R., July 1908. 

Cooper (Charles Henry) Annals of Cam- 
bridge. Vol. v., 1850-6. With Additions 
and Corrections to vols. i.-iv. and Index 
(113p.). 656p. Clay, 1908. 

1 INDIVIDUAL CHURCHES AND 

WRITERS. C Fathers 2 E.G. 

Church 3 Anglican. 

Connolly (R. H.) On Aphraates Hoin. 
1, 19. ' J. Th. St., July 1908. 

C Klein (G.) Die Gebete in der Didache. 
Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 2, 1908. 

[The Giving-of -Thanks or Bucharistic prayer of 
the Didache is nothing else than an equivalent of 
Jewish rites ; ix. 2 answers to the Kiddush 
ushering in the sabbath or feast day ; ix. 3 and 4, 
to the Blessing of the Bread ; x. 2-5, to the three 
Blessings which compose the " Table-Prayer."] 

Chapman (Dom) On the Date of the 
Clementines, II. 

Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 2, 1908. 

2 Lupton (J. M. ), ed. Q. Septimi Florentis 
Tertulliani de Baptismo. With Intro, and 
Notes. (Cambridge Patristic Texts.) 119p. 

Clay, 1908. 

Souter (Alexander), ed. Pseudo-Augus- 
tini Questiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti 
cxxvii. Accedit Appendix continens alter- 
ius editionis quaestiones selectas. 614p. 

Tempsky, 1908. 

[Vol. L. of the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasti- 
corum Latinorum.] 

Petschenig (M.), ed. Sancti Aureli 
Augustini Scripta contra Donatistas Pars 1 : 
Psalmus contra Partem Donati, contra 
Epistulam Parmeniani Libri Tres, De 
Baptismo Libri Septem. 41 Op. 

Tempsky, 1908. 

[Vol. LI. of Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum 
Latinorum. } 

Muzzey (D. S.) Were the Spiritual 
Franciscans Montanist Heretics ? 

Amer. J. Th., July 1908. 

[No, in spite of some similarities.] 

Pisani (P.) La constitution civile du 
Clerge. R. du Clerge fraii9., June 1, 1908. 

[An account of the anti-Ultramontane law of 
1790 and its application.] 

Hitchcock (G. S. ) The Last Things. 

Irish Th. Q., July 1908. 

[Depicts phases of thought leading a man, 
represented as a Unitarian, to become a 
Catholic.] 

Keating (J. ) A Study in Bigotry. 

The Month, July 1908. 

[As exhibited, according to the writer, in the 
references to Catholicism in R. F. Horton's What 
I Believe.} 

Van Ortroy (F. ) Manrese et les origines 
de la Compagnie de J6sus. 

Anal. Boll., fasc. iii. and iv., torn, xxvii. 

[Seeks to correct some current views.] 

Anon. Fenelon at Cambrai. 

Edin. R. , July 1908. 

Anon. Port Royal. Edin. R., July 1908. 

[Port Royal was an attempt unhappily an 
unsuccessful attempt to arrest the process of 
interior decay in religious and national life ; to 
make out of the France of the old regime, feudal, 



236 



THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 



Catholic and monarchical, " une nation instruite, 
honnete, ayantsouci duvrai."] 

Sarolea (Charles) Cardinal Newman and 
his Influence on Religious Life and Thought. 
(The World's Epoch-Makers.) 174p. 

Clark, 1908. 

[Author is more concerned in this essay with 
the theologian and the thinker than with the man 
and the artist. He tries to clear up some aspects 
of the problem and to get at the fundamental 
ideas and main conclusions of Newman.] 

Rule (Jtf.) The Leonian Sacramentary : 
An Analytical Study. J. Th. St. , July 1908. 

[To be continued. The writer seeks to prove 
that it was first composed under Leo the Great, 
an amplified redaction published under Hilarus, 
and a third and much augmented one under 
Simplicius.] 

Martindalc (G. C.) Catholics and Ath- 
leticism in Italy. The Month, July 1908. 

Smith (S. F.) Indulgences. 

The Month, June and July 1908. 

[Their rationale. A paper read before a Church 
guild.] 

3 Anon. The Lambeth Conference and the 
Union of the Churches. 

Church Q.R., July 1908. 

[Discussion in a liberal spirit of possibilities of 
reunion on the basis of Lambeth Quadrilateral. 
To further the proposed union with the Presby- 
terians in Australia, it is suggested that ministers 
of both communions should receive, not a new 
ordination, but a fresh commission with laying 
on of hands.] 

Cerisier (J. E.) Le Congres universel de 
PEglise anglicane. Rev. chre"t., Aug. 1908. 

Burns (Cecil Delisle) The Pan- Anglican 
Congress. Albany R., July 1908. 

[The papers of the Congress mark a stage in the 
growth of the religious consciousness. Whatever 
the religion of the future may be, it will cer- 
tainly contain more intellectual elements than 
any form of religion does now.] 

Welldon (Bishop) An " Imperial Con- 
ference " of the Church and its Significance. 
19th Cent, June 1908. 

Montgomery (Bishop H. H.) The Pan- 
Anglican Congress. Cont. R., Aug. 1908. 

Hodges ( George) The American Episcopal 
Church. Cont. R., July 1908. 

4 Albrecht (0.) Neue Katechismusstudien. 

Theol. St. u. Krit., Heft 4, 1908. 

[Dealing with "What did Luther understand 
by Catechism?" and "MSS. Material for the so- 
called Greater Catechism of Luther."] 

Mulct (R.) Wilhelm Farel der Refor- 
mator der franzbsischen Schweiz : Ein lebens- 
bild. Theol. St. u. Krit., Heft 4, 1908. 

[Concluding article.] 

Vaucher (E.) La reforme des Facult^s 
de theologie. Rev. chre"t., June 1908. 

[Criticism of the method and of the proposed 
reforms in the training of French Protestant 
pastors.] 

5 WarfieU (B. B.) The Westminster 
Assembly and its Work. 

Princeton Th. R., July 1908. 

[I.e. in framing Directory, Confession, and 
Catechisms. ] 

Beveridge (W.) Makers of the Scottish 
Church. (Handbooks for Bible Classes and 
Private Students. ) 212p. Clark, 1908. 

[A useful little work tracing the liistory of the 
Scottish Church from Columba down to the 
present time.] 

7 Evans (R. C. ) Calvinism : A Treatise on 
the Confession of Faith of the Calvinistic 
Methodists in Wales. 79p. Williams, 1908. 



L LITERATURE. 2 English 3 German 
5 Italian 9 Classical. 

2 Collins (Churton) The Literary Indebted- 
ness of England to France. 

Fort. R., Aug. 1908. 

Guyot ( Yves) The Influence of English 
Thought on the French Mind. 

FortR., July 1908. 

Ingram (J. H.) Verse ascribed to 
Shakespeare. Albany R., June 1908. 

Sullivan (Sir Edward) Shakespeare and 
the Waterways of North Italy. 

19th Cent., Aug. 1908. 
Hadow (W. H.) lago. 

Albany R., July 1908. 
[That lago is driven at last into the extreme of 
wickedness is admitted without reserve ; but the 
contention of the writer is that Shakespeare has 
made him, not a mere personification of evil, but 
a possible human being with human qualities.] 

Paul (Herbert) The Permanence of 
Wordsworth. 19th Cent. , June 1908. 

Eagleston (A. J.) Wordsworth, Cole- 
ridge, and the Spy. 1 9th Cent. , Aug. 1908. 
Stawell (F. Melian) The Poems of Mary 
Coleridge. Albany R., Aug. 1908. 

Thompson (the late Francis) Shelley. 

Dub. R., July 1908. 
[An eulogistic estimate.] 
Salt (Henry S.) Thoreau in Twenty 
Volumes. Fort. R., June 1908. 

Goddard (Harold Clarke) Studies in 
New England Transcendentalism. 227p. 

Columbia University Press, 1908. 
V Ward (Wilfred) Three Notable Editors : 
Delane, Hutton, Knowles. 

Dub. R., July 1908. 

W Morley (John) Miscellanies. Fourth 
series. 331p. Macmillan, 1908. 

[Essays on Machiavelli, Guicciardini, A New 
Calendar of Great Men, J. S. Mill, Lecky on 
Democracy, A Historical Romance, Democracy 
and Reaction. All have appeared before in the 
Times and Nineteenth Century.] 

Hamon (Augustin) Un riouveau Moliere : 
A French View of Bernard Shaw. 

19th Cent., July 1908. 

Salter ( W. Mackintire) Mr Bernard Shaw 
as a Social Critic. Inter. J. Eth. , July 1908. 

[Art has an end beyond itself ; and the object 
of Shaw's art in particular is to make men think, 
to make them uncomfortable, to convict them of 
sin.] 

Guidi(A.F.) Rudyard Kipling. Intimo. 
Coenobium, May 1908. 

[With more personal than literary detail.] 

3 Engel(B.C.) Schiller als Denker. 188p. 

Weidmann, 1908. 

Dowden (Edward) Goethe's West- 
Eastern Divan. Cont. R. , July 1908. 

[A delightful article upon Goethe's last im- 
portant body of lyrical poetry, the " West-Eastern 
Divan," which even in Germany is, as a whole, 
much less known than it deserves to be.] 

4 Qribblc (Francis) Rousseau in Venice. 

Fort. R., Aug. 1908. 
Wyndham (Francis M.) M. Anatole 
France on Joan of Arc. 

Dub. R., July 1908. 

5 Verrall(A. W.) Dante on the Baptism 
ofStatius. Albany R., Aug. 1908. 

Austin (Alfred) Dante's Poetic Concep- 
tion of Woman. Fort. R., June 1908. 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 237 



8 Rose (Henry) Ibsen as a Religious 
Teacher. Cont. R., June 1908. 

[A very appreciative treatment of " Peer 
Jynt" and "Brand" the "two greatest of the 
'ramatic poems of Ibsen."] 
Corssen (P.) ttber Begriff und Wesen 
Hellenismus. 

Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 2, 1908. 
Verrall(A. W.) The First Homer. 

Quar. R., July 1908. 

[Criticises Andrew Lang's Homer and His Age.] 
Ashby (Thomas) The Rediscovery of 
;ome. Quar. R., July 1908. 

[An interesting paper on recent excavations by 
he Director of the British School at Borne.] 



RELIGIONS. MYTHOLOGY. 4 

Unduism. 7 Judaism. 9 Demonology. 
Occultism. 

Best (E.) Maori Personifications of 

ature. Amer. Antiquarian, May 1908. 

Amtlineau (E.) La religion egyptienne 

apres M. Ad. Erman. 

R. de 1'Hist. des Rel., Mar. 1908. 

Radau (Hugo) Bel, the Christ of 
Ancient Times. 55p. Kegan Paul, 1908. 

[The "Light that lightens the world" said of 
himself, " Before Abraham was I was." He was 
and existed and was worshipped as " Son of the 
God of Heaven and Earth " under various names 
as early as 7000 B.C., when the monotheistic trini- 
tarian religion of Babylonia was systematised.] 

4 Macdonald(W. A.) The Oldest Story : 
Doings of our Ancestors in India 10,000 
years ago. Trans, from pre-Vedic Sanskrit. 
I70p. Questall Press, 1908. 

Segerstedt (T.) Les Asuras dans la 
religion vedique ( first article). 

R. de 1'Hist. des Rel., Mar. 1908. 

5 Anesaki (M.) II Buddhismo e i suoi 
critici. Ccenobium, May 1908. 

[An answer to what the author considers one- 
sided criticism.] 

Copleston (R. S.) Buddhism Primitive 
and Present in Magadha and in Ceylon. 
~ ed. 301p. Longmans, 1908. 

[The book has been entirely re-written. Notice 
has been taken of such recent discoveries as have 
become known to the author. Much important 
matter added in the form of notes.] 

Davids (T. D. Rhys) Early Buddhism. 
(Religions, Ancient and Modern. ) 92p. 

Constable, 1908. 

[An extremely valuable little book, giving a 
most interesting account of the life and teaching 
of the Buddha.] 

Lloyd (A.) The Wheat among the Tares : 
Studies of Buddhism in Japan. 146p. 

Macmillan, 1908. 

[A collection of Essays and Lectures, giving an 

unsystematic exposition of certain missionary 

problems of the Far East, with a plea for more 

systematic research. The author is Lecturer in 

the Imperial University, Tokyo, and was formerly 

Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge.] 

7 Franklin (Cecil A.), ed. The Jewish 

Literary Annual 196p. Routledge, 1908. 

[This sixth Jewish Literary Annual is of ex- 
ceptional interest, since it contains the five 
successful essays in the competition instituted in 
June 1907 by Mr Claude G. Monteflore.] 



o 

I 



Cohen (H. ) Some Notes on Resemblances 
of Hebrew and English Law. 

Jewish Q. R., July 1908. 

[I.e. Pentateuchal enactments.] 

Conybeare (F. C.) An Old Armenian 
Version of Josephus. J. Th. St. , July 1908. 

Levine (E) A Genizah Fragment of 
Genesis Rabba. Jewish Q. R., July 1908. 

[Text and notes.] 

Margoliouth (G.) The Doctrine of the 
Ether in the Kabbalah. 

Jewish Q. R., July 1908. 

[A title in some respects better, as the writer 



Buchler(A. ) TheBlessing 
in the Liturgy. Jewish Q. R., July 1908. 



says, would be the " Wlpi"! 7pQ) of Moses de 
Leon," of which much of the text is quoted and 
translated.] 

Robertson (E.) Notes on Javan, II. 

Jewish Q. R., July 1908. 

[Discusses Jemen and early JEgean civilisation.] 

Segal (M. H.) MiSnaic Hebrew and its 

Relation to Biblical Hebrew and to Aramaic. 

Jewish Q. R., July 1908. 

[Investigates the grammatical and lexical 
phenomena, and concludes that M. H. is absolutely 
independent in grammar of Aramaic. In the 
main it is identical with Bibl. Heb., and the 
differences are popular developments of older 
stages of the language, by natural living process.] 

Skipwith (G. H.) The Origins of the 
Religion of Israel. Jewish Q. R. , July 1908. 

[Concluding articles, collecting mythical data 
from wide sources and relating them to O.T. 
indications.] 

12 Mills (James Porter) Health : Omni- 
presence, Omniscience, Infinite, Abstract 
and Concrete. 319p. 

3 Cornwall Gardens, 1908. 

[Sets forth "the Principle and Practice of 
Mental and Spiritual Healing."] 

Goddard (H. G.} Mental Healing: Its 
Practical Side. New Church R. , July 1908. 

[Believes in a limited influence of mind upon 
mind not at all in Christian Science. Writer 
appears to be a physician.] 

Benson (Robert Hugh) Christian Science. 
Dub. R., July 1908. 

[Before Christian Science can be adequately 
met upon its own ground, it will be necessary 
that we know a great deal more about the de- 
partment of sub-conscious life which certainly 
underlies the conscious than we do at present.] 



P PHILOSOPHY. IQ " Metaphysics, 21 
Epistemology, 33 Psychical Research, 40 
Psychology, 60 " Logic, 70 " Systems, 90 " 
Philosophers. 

Dobson (G. R.) The Function of Philo- 
sophy as an Academic Discipline. 

J. of Phil., Aug. 13, 1908. 

[It is the specific and primary business of the 
philosophic department to assist the student to 
that unification of his mental life, to that organi- 
sation, which is the condition of growth.] 

Benrubi (J.) and others. Etudes sur le 
mouvement philosophique contemporain a 
1'etranger. 

Rev. de Meta. et de Morale, Sept. 1908. 

[A series of articles on Philosophy in Germany, 
by Benrubi ; in England, by J. 8. Mackenzie : in 
United States, by F. Thilly ; in Italy, by G. 
Amendola ; in Scandinavia, by H. Hoffding ; and 
in South America, by F. G. Calderon.] 

Ewald (Oscar) German Philosophy in 
1907. Phil. R., July 1908. 



238 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



[The revival of the idealistic speculation from 
Kant to Hegel is still going on ; the neo-romantic 
movement has lost little intensity. There is at 
present also high appreciation of, and attention 
accorded to, Leibniz.] 

Ewald (Oskar) Die deutsche Philosophic 
im Jahre 1907. Kantstudien, xiii. 3, 1908. 

[The preceding article in German.] 
2 Palmer (William Scott) Presence and 
Omnipresence. Cont. R., June 1908. 

[A Christian study aided by the philosophy of 
Bergson. The interpretation of Spirit by Spirit 
is a vital process ; and the ways of our thought 
in relation to what we call substance and 
mechanism are not even analogous to it. ] 
10 Aimel (Georges) Individualisme et philoso- 
phic bergsonien tie. Rev.de Phil. , June 1908. 

[Considers the philosophy of Bergsou as a 
thorough-going system;of individualism.] 

Bowne (Borden Parker) Personalism : 
Common Sense and Philosophy. 336p. 

Constable, 1908. 

[The aim of these lectures is to show that 
critical reflection brings us back again to the 
personal metaphysics which Corate rejected. 
Causal explanation must always be in terms of 
personality, or it must vanish altogether. Thus 
we return to the theological stage, but we do so 
with a difference. We now see that law and will 
must be united in our thought of the world. 
Man's earliest metaphysics re-emerges in his 
latest ; but enlarged, enriched, and purified by 
the ages of thought and experience,] 

Cuche (P. J.) Le proces de 1'Absolu. 

Rev. dePhil., June, July 1908. 

[Examines various views, chiefly that of Herbert 
Spencer.] 

Parsons (J. D. ) Realta et Oggettivita. 
Coenobium, May 1908. 

Trendelenburg (Adolf) Zur Geschichte 
des Wortes Person. Nachgelassene Abhand- 
lung eingefiihrt von Rudolf Eucken. 

Kantstudien, xiii. 1 and 2, 1908. 

Meyerson (Emile) Identite et Realit4. 
438p. Alcan, 1908. 

[See p. 210.] 

12 Messer (August) Heinrich Gomperz' 
W eltanschauungslehre. 

Kantstudien, xiii. 3, 1908. 
[A criticism of the first volume of Oomperz's 
work.] 

13 Anon. The Question of Life in Mars. 

Edin. R., July 1908. 

[Neither Lowell nor A. E. Wallace has suc- 
ceeded in the task which he undertook.] 

Wallace (Alfred Mussel) The Present 
Position of Darwinism. Cont. R., Aug. 1908. 

[Examines the theories which are claimed to 
be, in whole or part, a substitute for Darwin's 
explanation of organic evolution by means of 
Natural Selection viz. the theories of the Neo- 
Lamarckists, the Mutationists, and the 
Mendelians.] 

Atkinson (Mabel) The Struggle for 

Existence in Relation to Morals and Religion. 

Phil. R., April 1908. 

[The conception of the underlying similarity of 
the progress of life through natural selection, and 
through conscious community of existence, 
explains and enlarges Huxley's views. It turns 
out that man is not a fragile reed, a delicate plant 
in an artificial garden, but that he embodies in 
himself, in a better and higher form, the same 
forces that urge on the cosmic process of life.] 

Vieilleton (L. ) La loi biog^netique fonda- 
mentale de Haeckel. 

Rev. de Meta. et de Mor., July 1908. 

Poulton (E. B.) Essays on Evolution, 
1889-1907. 527p. Clarendon Press, 1908. 



Berthelot (Rent,) 6volutionisme et Platon- 
isme : Melanges d'histoire de la Philosophic 
et d'histoire des Sciences. Alcan, 1908. 

[Author deals with "1'evolutionisme mecaniste " 
of Darwin and Spencer, with " 1'evolutionisme 
romantique et vitaliste " of Guyau, Nietzsche, 
and Bergson, and aims at showing that evolution- 
ism can also be a " philosophic idealiste."] 
14 Russell (Leonard J.) Space and Mathe- 
matical Reasoning. Mind, July 1908. 

[An able article, developing a view of space on 
lines suggested by Kant's work. The author 
criticises Mr Bertrand Russell's theory of space. 
If we are to hold seriously to absolute space, and 
if it is to be of any value to us, we must consider 
it as in some way interacting with the matter 
in it.] 

21 Leighton (Joseph A.) The Final Ground 
of Knowledge. Phil. R., July 1908. 

[There can be no truth or knowledge which 
does not obtain in and for some minds. And, 
since there can be no world of existents unquali- 
fied by truth, there can be no world of existents 
without a world-mind. In a final analysis the 
objectivity of truth, the valid reference of know- 
ledge to reality, depends on the reality of a single, 
systematic intelligence.] 

Boodin (John E.) Energy and Reality. 
I. Is Experience Self-Supporting ? II. The 
Definition of Energy. 

J. of Phil., July 2 and 16, 1908. 

[Experience in many ways seems to depend 
upon an extra-experiential constitution. The 
concept of energy is a dual concept involving 
process or stuff, on the one hand, and constancy 
or uniformity of processes, on the other. ] 

Moore (A. W.) Truth Value. 

J. of Phil. , July 30, 1908. 

[Truth-value is the value of the entire experi- 
ence of readjusting conflicting values through the 
process of redistribution of values effected by 
interaction with a wider and relatively more 
permanent range of relevant values.] 

Bouyssonie (A.) De la reduction a 
1'unite des principes de la raison. 

Rev. dePhil., Aug. 1908. 

Schmitt (Eugen H,) Kritik der Philo- 
sophic vom Standpunkt der intuitiven 
Erkenntnis. 515p. Eckhardt, 1908. 

Rey (Abel) L'e"nergetique et le mecan- 
isme au point de vue des conditions de la 
connaissance. 186p. Alcan, 1908. 

Spir (A.) Denken und Wirklichkeit. 
Versuch einer Erneuerung der kritischen 
Philosophic. 4te Aufl. mit Titelbild nebst 
eine Skizze iiber des Autors Lebeu und 
Lehre von Helene Claparede-Spir. 577p. 

Earth, 1908. 

[This new edition is edited by the author's 
daughter, who writes an interesting account of 
her father's life and teaching.] 

25 Baensch (Otto) Ueber historische Kau- 

salitut. Kantstudien, xiii., 1 and 2, 1908. 

27 Weber (L.) La finalit^ en biologic et son 

fondement mecanique. Rev. Phil. .July 1908. 

[Maintains that causation is final causation, that 

ia to say, the causality of creative and directive 

ideas. The domain of life is par excellence the 

domain of finality, and biological facts can only 

be interpreted by means of teleological ideas.] 

33 Johnson (Alice) On the Automatic 

Writing of Mrs Holland. 

Proc. S.P.R., lv., June 1908. 

[A careful and thorough piece of investigation.] 

Barrett ( W. F.) On the Threshold of a 

New World of Thought : An Examination 

of the Phenomena of Sj iritualism . 1 27p. 

Kegan Paul, 1908. 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 239 



Bennett (Edward T. ) The Direct Pheno- 
of Spiritualism : Speaking, Writing, 
wing. Music. Painting. 64p. 

Rider, 1908. 
40 Qemelli(A.) Le fondement biologique de 
la Psychologie. Rev. Neo-Scol., May 1908. 
Witasek (Stephan) Grundlinien der 
Psychologie. 400p. Diirr, 1908. 

[This little volume is of extreme interest, 
written, as it is, from the point of view of 
Meinong and the Graz psychologists. The treat- 
t of thought, and the higher mental pro- 
is especially noteworthy.] 
Seashore (Carl K) Elementary Experi- 
mts in Psychology. 227p. Holt, 1908. 
Tawney (G. A.) Ultimate Hypotheses 
Psychology. J. of Phil., Aug. 13, 1908. 
[Discusses Professor Calkin's recent papers.] 
Ross (E. Alsworth) Social Psychology: 
Ln Outline and Source Book. 388p. 

Macmillan, 1908. 

[A pioneer treatise in what is, as yet, an infant 
e. Social psychology treats of the psychic 
i and currents that arise in consequence of 
_ian association. Its phenomena may be con- 
iered under the heads of Social Ascendency and 
Individual Ascendency. Author acknowledges 
lebtedness to Gabriel Tarde.] 
Mauss (M.) L'Art et le My the d'apres 
fundt. Rev. Phil., July 1908. 

[A critical account of Wundt's Volkerpsycho- 
pfc.] 

Trotter (W.) Herd Instinct and its 
ig on the Psychology of Civilised 
Sociological R., July 1908. 
Lindsay (J. ) Psychology of the Soul. 

Princeton Th. R., July 1908. 
Kirkpatrick (E. A.) The Part Played 
Consciousness in Mental Operations. 

J. of Phil., July 30, 1908. 
[The subconscious explanation is readily used 
td difficult to test in any reliable way. Hence 
seems safer for the scientist to attempt to 
the physiological explanation until more is 
iwn.] 

Ramon (A.} Mysticisme et subcon- 
ience. R. prat d'Apologet., July 1, 1908. 
,inst Delacroix (Etudes d'histoire et de 
logie), who would regard mysticism as an 

of the subconscious.] 

Beers (Clifford W.) A Mind that Found 
slf: An Autobiography. 37lp. 

Longmans, 1908. 

[An account of the coming to itself of a mind 
that was deranged.] 

48 Sollier (P. )et Danville (G.} Passion dujeu 
i manie dujeu. Rev. Phil., June 1908. 
[Beside normal passion, play appears patho- 
ically as the equivalent of certain hysterical 
nifestations, of constitutional morbidness, and 
of moral depression.] 

Rageot (G.) Le probleme experimental 
temps. Rev. Phil., July 1908. 

Turro (R.} Psychologie de 1'equilibre 
lu corps humain. 

Rev. de Phil., June, July 1908. 
Dagnan-Bouveret (J.) L'aphasie et les 
localisations cerebrales. 

Rev. de Meta. et de Mor., July 1908. 
Bailey (Thomas P.) Organic Sensation 



J. of Phil., July 16, 1908. 
58 Wodehouse (Helen) Judgment and 
Apprehension. Mind, July 1908. 

[Supports the thesis that judgment and appre- 
hension are identical, and examines Stout's 



arguments on the other side. The division be- 
tween judgment and apprehension disappears so 
soon as we remove from judgment the shadow 
of a mysteriousness and complication which it 
really does not possess.] 

54 Ziehen(Th.) Das Gedaohtnis. 50p. 

Hirschwald, 1908. 

55 Lucka(E.) Die Phantasie. 197p. 

Braumiiller, 1908. 

Winch ( W. H. ) The Function of Images. 
J. of Phil., June 18, 1908. 
[Tries to distinguish "image" from "sensa- 
tion" and from "thought." Argues that the 
function of "images" has been much over-esti- 
mated.] 

59 Wodehouse (Helen-) The Logic of Will : 
A Study in Analogy. 176p. 

Macmillan, 1908. 

[Attempts to give some elaboration to the 
general analogy between cognition and conation. 
The analogy is of considerable value psychologi- 
cally, but it is of less value in speculative meta- 
physics and the investigation of the relation 
between truth and goodness.] 

60 Vail&ti (Giovanni) On Material Repre- 
sentations of Deductive Processes. 

J. of Phil., June 4, 1908. 

61 Sageret (J. ) La Curiosite Scientifique. 

Rev. Phil., June 1908. 
[All human actions arise from curiosity, inter- 
ested or disinterested, and division as to scientific 
problems can only cease when curiosity concern- 
ing them shall cease.) 

72 Valensin (A. ) La theorie de 1'experience 
d'apres Kant. Rev. de Phil., July 1908. 

Stadler (August) Die Frage als Prinzip 
des Erkennens und die Einleitung der 
Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 

Kantstudien, xiii. 3, 1908. 

[By the will the sensory impression becomes an 
end, through questioning or inquiry an object of 
knowledge, a problem.] 

Schubert- Soldern (Richard v.) Die 
Grundfragen der Aesthetik uuter kritischer 
Zugrundelegung von Kants Kritik der 
Urteilskraft. Kantstudien, xiii. 3, 1908. 

[Not a discussion of the fundamental notions 
of ^Esthetics according to Kant, but a further 
working out of these ideas apart from Metaphysics.] 

Bauch (Bruno) Kant in neuer ultra- 
montan- und liberal-katholischer Beleuch- 
tung. Kantstudien, xiii. 1 and 2, 1908. 

Spranger (Eduard) W. v. Humboldt 
und Kant. Kantstudien, xiii. 1 and 2, 1908. 

Ewald ( Oscar) Kants kritischer Idealie- 
mus als Grundlage von Erkenntnistheorie 
und Ethik. 323p. Hofmann, 1908. 

73 Braun(0.) Die Entwickelung des Gottes- 
begriffes bei Schelling. 

Z. f. Phil. u. Phil. Krit, cxxxi. 2, 1908. 

[An appreciative account of Schelling's doctrine 
at different stages of its development.] 

Kinkel ( W. ) Schelling's Rede : Ueber das 
Verhaltnis der bildenden Kiinste zur Natur. 

Z. f. Phil. u. Phil. Krit., cxxxi. 2, 1908. 

Korwan (Anton) Schelling und die 
Philosophic der Gegenwart. 

Z. f. Phil. u. Phil. Krit., cxxxi. 2, 1908. 

[Lays emphasis upon Schelling's Natur- 
philosophie as being in many features reproduced 
in modern thinking. Also Schelling's ^Esthetic 
is still deserving of study.] 

Schmidt (Ferdinand Jakob) Zur Wieder- 

eburt des Idealismus. Philosophische 
tudien. 243p. Diirr, 1908. 

[This collection of essays is of interest as 
indicating in Gel-many a tendency of return to 



240 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



Hegel. The author writes from the point of view 
of -Hegelian idealism, and deals in a very suggestive 
way with present-day problems.] 

Schwarz (H. ) Ein markantes Buch in der 
neu-idealistischen Bewegung. 

Z. f. Phil. u. Phil. Krit., cxxxi. 2, 1908. 

[Deals with Schmidt's Zur Wiedergeburt det 
Idealismus. Author maintains that German 
thought has recently been untrue to the natural 
course of its development, and under foreign 
influence has followed the unfruitful path of 
Empiricism.) 

Miinsterberg (Hugo) Philosophic der 
Werte. Grundziige einer Weltanschauung. 
489p. Earth, 1908. 

[In this important work the author attempts to 
show in the light of modern thought the truth of 
what Fichte announced a hundred years ago, that 
philosophy reveals a Life which is eternal and 
which remains the same in all change. There is 
developed in the first part a theory of values, and 
in the second a system of values. The book is 
dedicated to Royce. Review will follow.] 
74 Hibben(John Grier) The Test of Prag- 
matism. Phil. R., July 1908. 

[1. Pragmatism is inadequate as a working 
hypothesis. 2. It is inadequate, because in its 
application we subordinate it to other considera- 
tions. 3. It is inadequate, because of the limita- 
tion of its alleged creative function.] 

Dewey (John) The Logical Character of 
Ideas. J. of Phil. , July 2, 1908. 

[Reply to Pratt.] 

Walker (Leslie J.) Martineau and the 
Humanists. Mind, July 1908. 

[Intellectualism exaggerates the functions of 
thought; Martineau and the Humanists unduly 
curtail them, and confuse them with the 
functions of sense. Martineau is as much the 
enemy of intellectualism in Ethics as the 
Humanist is its enemy in Epistemology, and the 
fact is due to a similar cause, partly to his Volun- 
tarism and partly to his rejection of the objective 
point of view.] 

Berthelot (JR.) Sur le Pragmatisme de 
Nietzsche. 

Rev. de Me"ta. et de Mor., July 1908. 

[Nietzsche did not know the name, but he was 
the first clearly to apprehend what is now 
described as "pragmatism." Author gives a 
detailed exposition of the pragmatism of Nietzsche, 
and deals with its origin (i.) in romanticism, and 
(ii.)in utilitarianism.] 

Stettheimer (Ettie) The Will to Believe 
as a Basis for the Defence of Religious Faith : 
A Critical Study. (Archives of Philosophy. ) 
103p. Science Press, 1907. 

[Criticises James's theory (i.) by comparing it 
with related doctrines for the purpose of bringing 
into relief its individual character, and (ii.) by 
examining into its coherence for the purpose of 
exhibiting its inherent inconsistency.] 

Hebert (Marcel) Le Pragmatisme : 
Etude de ses diverses formes, anglo-ameri- 
caines, frangaises et italiennes et de sa 
valeur religieuse. Nourry, 1908. 

[Seep. 218.] 

77 Salvadori (Guglielmo) Positivism in 
Italy. J. of Phil., Aug. 13, 1908. 

[Discussion of philosophies of Ardigb and 
Varisco.] 

Crespi( Angela) The Principle of Causality 
in Italian Scientific Philosophy. 

Mind, July 1908. 

[An account of the philosophy of Professor 
Robert Ardigb, of Padua.] 



80 Burnet (J.) Early Greek Philosophy, 
2nd ed. 433p. Black, 1908. 

[Largely re-written in the light of discoveries 
made since the publication of the first edition in 
1892, "above all that of the extracts from 
Menon's 'larptKa," which have furnished, so the 
author thinks, a clue to the history of 
Pythagoreanism.] 

89 Rousselot (Pierre) L'lntellectualisme de 
Saint Thomas. 250p. Alcan, 1908. 

[A very careful and thorough account of the 
teaching of Aquinas. Part I. deals with intellec- 
tion as such ; Part II. with human speculation 
and its value ; Part III. with intelligence and 
human action ; whilst in a concluding section 
intellectualism as religious philosophy is con- 
sidered.] 

Rousselot (Pierre} Pour 1'histoire du 
probleme de 1'amour au moyen age. 
(Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophic 
des Mittelalters. ) I04p. 

Aschendorffsche Buchhandlung, 1908. 

90 Piat (Clodius) De 1'iutuition en TheV 
dice"e. Rev. Neo-Scol., May 1908. 

[Largely a discussion of Malebranche's theory 
of the idea of infinite being.] 
92 Block (Leon) La philosophic de Newton. 
643p. Alcan, 1908. 

Milhaud (G.) La philosophic de New- 
ton, par M. L. Bloch. 

Rev. de Meta. et de Mor., July 1908. 
[A very appreciative review.] 
94V Anon. Herbert Spencer. 

Edin. R., July 1908. 

[Along with a wonderful excess of originality 
there went in Spencer a great deficiency of 
receptivity. The details of his character gain 
their chief interest from the fact that a know- 
ledge of them greatly aids the comprehension of 
his works.] 
Potion (G. S. ) Beyond Good and Evil. 

Princeton Th. R., July 1908. 
[A presentation of Nietzsche's teaching.] 

V ART. 83 Sacred Music. 

Muller-Freienfels (R.) Zur Theorie der 
aesthetischen Elementarerscheinungen, II. 
Vierteljahrssch. f. w. Phil, xxxii. 2, 1908. 

[ii. Konsonanzerscheinungen. iii. Die Elemen- 
tarformen der bildenden Kunst.l 

Lalo (Oh. ) Les sens esthe"tiques, II. 

Rev. Phil., June 1908. 

[Forms and sounds are the only things for 
which we have both receptive and producing 
organs. Accordingly, {esthetic sensations, being 
both active and passive, can only be given by 
sight and hearing. ] 

Sentroul(C.) La Verite dans 1'Art. III. 
L'ceuvre d'art, expression d'une concep- 
tion esthe"tique inspire'e par le re'el. 

Rev. Ne"o-Scol., May 1908. 

Bryan (J. Ingram) The Secret of 

Japanese Art. Albany R., June 1908. 

83 Anon. Hymnology, Classic and Romantic. 

Edin. R., July 1908. 

Gasquet (Abbot) and Bishop (Edmund), 
eds. The Bosworth Psalter : An Account 
of a Manuscript formerly belonging to O. 
Turville-Petrie,Esq.,nowAddit.,MS.37,517 
at British Museum. 189p. Bell, 1908. 

[Editors think that the Psalter dates from the 
earlier years of St Dunstan's archiepiscopate, and 
was probably written for him.] 



[NOTE. For an explanation of the system of classification adopted in the Bibliography, 
readers are referred to HIBBERT JOURNAL, vol. i. p. 630 sqq.] 

G. D. H. and J. H. W. 



THE 

j HIBBERT JOURNAL 

SOME RECENT INVESTIGATIONS BY THE 
OCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. 

THE RIGHT HON. GERALD W. BALFOUR. 

UCH attention has been given during the last few years by 
Society for Psychical Research to the subject of auto- 
tic writing, and especially to the phenomena now known 
cross-correspondences" exhibited by the scripts of a 
particular group of automatic writers. Apart from their 
intrinsic interest, some have seen in these phenomena the 
promise of a new and powerful instrument of investigation 
which might even make it possible to apply an effective test 
to the authenticity of communications purporting to come 
from disembodied spirits. One object of the present paper 
will be to inquire how far such an expectation appears to 
be well founded. 

In the first place, what precisely is meant by a cross- 
correspondence ? 

The term has hardly yet been submitted to strict definition. 
Let us suppose A and B to be writers of automatic script 
sitting at the same hour on the same day in London and 
Edinburgh respectively. If, under such conditions, A's script 
describes correctly facts relating to the surroundings of B, 

of which A could have no normal knowledge, this would 
VOL. VII. No. 2. 241 16 



242 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

certainly seem to point to some kind of telepathic rapport 
between the two automatists, but would it constitute a cross- 
correspondence ? As employed by Mrs Verrall, 1 the term 
would apparently include such cases. On the other hand, 
Miss Johnson, in her valuable chapter 2 on the " Theory of 
Cross- Correspondences," prefers to restrict it to cases " in which 
independent references to the same topic occur at about the 
same time in the scripts of both writers." Mr Piddington, 
to whose labours and very arduous labours they must have 
been we owe the latest and by far the most important 
collection of correspondences yet published, is very sparing 
of discussion on the general aspects of the question, being 
for the most part content to refer the reader to Miss Johnson's 
essay. 

If the wide extension implied in Mrs Verrall's application 
of the term is legitimate, it is not easy to see how a simple 
correspondence is to be distinguished from a cross-corre- 
spondence. In the natural signification of the word, a cross- 
correspondence between two automatic writers A and B 
would appear to imply a cross-reference, i.e. a reference of 
A to B and of B to A. It was probably this consideration 
which led Miss Johnson to restrict the term to cases " where 
references to the same topic occur independently in the two 
scripts," and refuse it to cases " where one automatist describes 
correctly some fact about the other." Yet even thus some 
difficulties remain. From one point of view, the meaning 
given to the word by Miss Johnson may be thought too 
narrow. Let us suppose a case in which the script of A 
correctly describes B's surroundings, while that of B correctly 
describes A's surroundings. There would certainly seem to 
be a reciprocity of reference here, yet the case would not 
rank as a cross-correspondence in Miss Johnson's sense, 

1 In her Report on her own Automatic Writings, Proceedings of the S.P.R., 
vol. xx. 

2 Proceedings of the S.PR., vol. xxi. " On the Automatic Writing of Mrs 
Holland/' chapter vii. 



RECENT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 243 

inasmuch as the two scripts could not be said to refer to 
the same topic. Passing by this objection, however, it may 
possibly be argued from another point of view that Miss 
Johnson's application of the term is too wide. Is it certain 
that every case in which references to the same topic occur 
independently in two scripts is necessarily a case of reciprocal 
erence? If other personal happenings in connection with 
may be apprehended telepathically by B and appear in B's 
;ript without being held to constitute a cross-correspondence, 
y not A's automatic writing also? For that too is a 
rsonal happening in connection with A, and it is at least 
doubtful whether, regarded as an object of telepathic appre- 
hension by B, it is properly distinguishable from A's other 
rsonal happenings. 

In whatever way this doubt may be resolved and perhaps 
satisfactory solution is possible without a clearer insight 
to the nature of telepathy than we at present possess it 
gests a question of great importance in relation to the 
vestigations with which we are here concerned. Can corre- 
ndences between the scripts (or trance-utterances) of different 
tomatists take such a form that, t /ro??z the peculiarities of that 
m alone, we are entitled to infer something beyond a simple 
lepathic perception by one automatist of what is consciously 
subconsciously present to the mind of another ? 
It is to Miss Johnson that belongs the merit of having been 
e first to raise this question, though not exactly in the shape 
re given to it. When studying the proofs of Mrs Verrall's 
port early in 1906, Miss Johnson was " struck by the fact 
at in some of the most remarkable instances [of cross-corres- 
ndences contained in the Report] the statements in the script 
f one writer were by no means a simple reproduction of state- 
ents in the script of the other, but seemed to represent 
ifferent aspects of the same idea, one supplementing or 
complementing the other." Furthermore, this peculiarity 
appeared to be emphasised by passages in Mrs Verrall's own 
ript, indicating that it was not accidental but deliberate. A 






244 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

considerable number of such passages have been collected by 
Miss Johnson, and included in her chapter on the Theory of 
Cross-Correspondences. A few of these may be quoted here : 

9,1th Oct. 1902. Mrs [Forbes] has the other words piece together. Add 
hers to yours. 

31st Oct. 1902. You have not understood all try further. She has some 
words incomplete to be added to and pieced and make the clue. 

3rd Nov. 1902. I will give the words between you neither alone can read, 
but together they will give the clue he wants. 

10th Aug. 1904-. Sit regularly and wait. I want something quite different 
tried you are not to guess, and you will probably not understand what you 
write. But keep it all, and say nothing about it yet. Then at Christmas, or 
perhaps before, you can compare your own words with another's, and the truth 
will be manifest. 

That the above passages are apposite to the new type of 
cross-correspondences which Miss Johnson believed herself to 
have discovered will not be disputed. " The characteristic of 
these cases," she goes on to say, " is that we do not get in the 
writing of one automatist anything like a mechanical verbatim 
reproduction of the phrases in the other ; we do not even get 
the same idea expressed in different ways as might well 
result from direct telepathy between them. What we get is a 
fragmentary utterance in one script, which seems to have no 
particular point or meaning, and another fragmentary utterance 
in the other, of an equally pointless character ; but when we 
put the two together, we see that they supplement one another, 
and that there is apparently one coherent idea underlying both, 
but only partially expressed in each." 

It is evident that the type of cross-correspondence here 
described might be realised in very different degrees of per- 
fection in different cases. Its possible significance may 
perhaps be most conveniently illustrated by an imaginary 
example intended to represent it at its best. 

When the Shakespear-Bacon controversy was at its height 
and the discovery of recondite cryptograms was the order of the 
day, some ingenious person happened to find out that in the 
46th Psalm, as printed in the Authorised Version of the Bible, 
the forty-sixth word from the beginning is " shake," and the 



RECENT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 245 

forty-sixth word from the end is " spear." Now suppose that 
three automatic writers sit simultaneously in three different 
laces, and produce script independently of each other that 
to say, without collusion and without normally acquired 
nowledge on the part of any of the three of what the others 
writing. On comparison it is found that A's script refers 
the Bible version of the 46th Psalm, B's to Shakespear, 
hile that of C contains an injunction to count forty-six from 
e beginning and forty-six from the end, without specifying 
hat it is that has to be counted. 

With this imaginary example before us, let us return to the 
uestion which we left unanswered a while since : Is it possible 
r a cross-correspondence to take such a form as to entitle us, 
m the mere peculiarities of that form, to infer something 
yond a simple telepathic perception by one automatist of 
hat is consciously or subconsciously present to the mind of 
other ? A brief consideration of our imaginary case shows, 
think, that this question must be answered in the affirmative, 
ven if one or all of the automatists knew of the cryptogram, 
e fact that the three scripts so dove-tailed into each other 
that their real significance became apparent only on comparison 
would be insufficiently accounted for by a mere quasi-passive 
psychical rapport between the writers. It would be at once 
felt that we had here evidence of the active intervention of 
urpose and design. If many such cases occurred, the evidence 
r purposive action would be irresistible. Understanding, 
en, by " simple telepathy " a telepathic community of 
ental content into which the element of deliberate intention 
d design does not enter, it will be admitted, I think, that 
e peculiar type of cross-correspondence we are now con- 
idering is capable of carrying us beyond simple telepathy. 

But how far will it carry us ? Let me quote Miss Johnson 
once more. " It occurred to me then," she writes, " that by 
this method [i.e. by means of cross-correspondences in which 

fie script provides a complement to the other], if by any, it 
ight be possible to obtain evidence more 'conclusive than any 



246 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

obtained hitherto of the action of a third intelligence external 
to the minds of both automatists. If we simply find the same 
idea expressed even though in different forms by both of 
them, it may, as I have just said, most easily be explained by 
telepathy between them ; but it is much more difficult to 
suppose that the telepathic perception of one fragment could 
lead to the production of another fragment which can only 
after careful comparison be seen to be related to the first." 

Similarly, Mr Piddington, after remarking that the simple 
type of coincidence which consists in the production of the 
same word or phrase through two automatists is easy enough 
to explain as the result of telepathic interchange between them, 
but that "this theory seemed inadequate to cover some of 
the more complex forms of cross-correspondence inherent in 
Mrs Verrall's and Mrs Holland's scripts, which appeared to 
point to the action of some third mind," adds that as he and 
his co-workers reflected on the problem they " came to realise 
how cross-correspondences might be so elaborated as to afford 
almost conclusive proof of the intervention of a third mind, 
and strong evidence of the identity of this third mind." 

These are high hopes ; but if they are to prove well 
grounded, it is clear, I think, that they must be based on 
something besides the merely formal or structural peculiarities 
of a special type of cross-correspondence. Those peculiarities 
may indeed justify us in inferring intelligent action directed to 
the attainment of an end ; but there remains the possibility 
that the intelligent action has its source within one of the 
automatists themselves. And to determine this question if 
indeed it can be determined we must take account not merely 
of the form of the cross-correspondence, but also every other 
circumstance that can throw light upon it. 

The term "cross-correspondence" has probably become 
too deeply engrained in the technical language of Psychical 
Research to be easily got rid of ; otherwise it might be better 
to discard it, and divide correspondences between automatic 
scripts into two classes, which I should propose to call simple 



RECENT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 247 

and complementary correspondences respectively. No doubt 
the two classes pass by insensible gradations into each other : 
also, it must be admitted that any correspondence, to which- 
ever class assigned, may be the result of purposive activity. 
But, speaking generally, in simple correspondences the form 
gives no indication of purpose ; in complementary correspond- 
ences there is ground for suspecting purpose, though the ground 
may be far from amounting to a proof ; a repetition of extreme 
cases of " dove-tailing," as exhibited in our imaginary example, 

rould convert suspicion into practical certainty. 

The voluminous automatic script of Mrs Verrall, Miss 

r errall, Mrs Holland, Mrs Forbes, Mrs Piper, and others, 
from 1901 onwards, published by the Society for Psychical 
jarch, contains a very considerable number of correspon- 

mces both of the simple and of the complementary type. 

"hese deserve the most careful study by all who are interested 
the subject. In particular, the paper by Mr J. G. Piddington, 

ititled " A Series of Concordant Automatisms," which fills the 

>st part of a bulky number of the Society's Proceedings issued 
October last, forms in some respects the most important 

attribution to Psychical Research that has been made within 
jnt years. 

In saying this I am far from wishing to disparage the value 
the earlier Reports which we owe to Mrs Verrall and Miss 
(ohnson. But the correspondences to be found in those reports 
cannot compare either in number or in complexity with the 
later series. Perhaps this was to be expected, whatever 
explanation we incline to give of the results obtained. By 
the time the later series began, the importance of cross- 
correspondences and the evidential possibilities which they 
seemed to hold out had been fully realised by members of the 
Society, largely owing to the labours of Mrs Verrall and Miss 
Johnson themselves. The conduct of a series of cross-corre- 
spondence experiments was, indeed, one main reason why the 
Society invited Mrs Piper to come over. This was of course 
known to those who had the management of Mrs Piper's 



248 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

sittings (described by Mr Piddington as the " experimenters 
in charge "), and to Mrs Verrall, who frequently sat to obtain 
automatic writing at hours adjusted to those of Mrs Piper's 
trance. It was also known to Miss Verrall, and, during the 
latter half of the period over which the sittings extended, to 
Mrs Holland as well. Though withheld from Mrs Piper in her 
normal state, it was freely mentioned in her presence when in 
the trance condition. Her trance-personalities were constantly 
encouraged to produce cross - correspondences through the 
various automatists, and a message was conveyed to them 
(veiled, it is true, in Latin, a language not understood by Mrs 
Piper) laying special stress on the importance of correspondences 
of the complementary type. 

In these conditions 71 sittings, extending from 15th 
November 1906 to 2nd June 1907, in the course of which 
some 120 " experiments " were tried, resulted in a number of 
more or less successful cases of cross-correspondence sufficient 
to occupy several hundred pages of print and as many as 
twenty- three subject-headings in Mr Piddington's Report. 

The Platonic Socrates remarks somewhere concerning the 
writings of Heraclitus the Obscure, that it needed a stout 
swimmer to win through them. It is to be feared that many, 
even of those who have had the courage to take the first 
plunge, will feel something of the same kind about Mr 
Piddington's paper. But the author himself is hardly to blame 
for this. It is inherent in the material with which he has to 
work. The tedious and bewildering incoherence of the auto- 
matic writings, the curiously intricate and allusive character 
of many of the cross-correspondences, which often require real 
ingenuity and some literary knowledge to detect and unravel, 
the number of sittings over which a single experiment may 
extend, and the number of different scripts which have to be 
compared at every turn these and other difficulties make 
brevity and lucidity practically impossible. It may be added 
that they are difficulties for a reviewer as well as for the 
author. How is he 'to deal with such a mass of material, 




RECENT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 249 

the evidential value of which can only be estimated by careful 
attention to minute detail ? The task might well seem almost 
a hopeless one within the limits of a magazine article ; and 
yet I feel that an attempt must be made to describe a few 
at least of the incidents recorded with such fulness in Mr 
Piddington's Report, if only to enable the reader unacquainted 
with the original to form, by the help of actual examples, 
some more concrete idea of the phenomena obtained. 

It should be clearly understood, however, that these 
pies can only serve as illustrations, and that even as 
illustrations they are not to be regarded as samples from 
which the character and quality of the entire series can 
fairly be judged. 

The six weeks from the middle of March to the end of 
April were peculiarly prolific of triple correspondences between 
the scripts of Mrs Piper, Mrs Verrall, and Mrs Holland ; Mrs 
Holland writing throughout the period in India, Mrs Piper 
in London, and Mrs Verrall either in Cambridge or at 
Matlock Bath. 

Two of these cases are described in the report under the 
headings "Cup" and "Thanatos." They are both of them 
interesting and instructive examples, though in the former 
the part played by Mrs Holland might fairly be set down to 
chance coincidence ; but I pass them over in order to select 
for more detailed treatment three other cases which, taken 
together, afford perhaps the best specimen of complementary 
correspondence to be found in the whole volume. I propose 
to consider them separately in the first instance, and afterwards 
in relation to each other. 

1. It is worthy of remark that Mrs Piper's share in this 
series of triple correspondences is a comparatively subordinate 
one. In the case I shall give first it is confined to the words 
" Light in West " uttered during the " waking stage " l on 
the 8th of April. The piecemeal ejaculations which invariably 

1 Mrs Piper passes into a deep self-induced trance before she begins to 
write. The " waking stage/' or process of " coming to/' lasts several minutes. 



250 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

proceed from Mrs Piper during the " waking stage " are often 
quite as significant as the script itself. They frequently serve 
to indicate particular words or phrases as subjects of a cross- 
correspondence ; and it is probable that such an indication was 
meant to be given in the present instance. 

Be that as it may, Mrs Holland's script, written a few 
hours earlier on the same day in India, contained the 
following passage : 

The Constellation of Orion. 

The tall spire shows above the mellow redness of the wall. Do you 
remember that exquisite sky when the afterglow made the East as beautiful and 
as richly coloured as the West Martha became as Mary, and Leah as Rachel. 

Also on the same day, but a few hours later, at Cambridge, 
Mrs Verrall wrote : 

The words were from Maud, but you did not understand. 

" Rosy is the East/' and so on. 

You will find that you have written a message for Mr Piddington which you 
did not understand but he did. Tell him that. 

The words " You will find that you have written a message," 
etc., almost certainly indicate that a cross-correspondence is 
to be looked for. That a cross-correspondence does exist is 
evident ; and that it is closer than might appear at first glance 
a brief consideration will show. 

The words " Rosy is the East " in Mrs Yen-all's script are 
a misquotation from Tennyson's Maud, and were at once seen 
to be so by Mrs Yerrall herself. They should be " Rosy is 
the West." The substitution of East for West may be a mere 
error, but it may also be deliberate ; and there is at least one 
other instance in Mrs Yen-all's script of a misquotation which 
would be fully explained by supposing it to be employed for 
the express purpose of emphasising the word that has replaced 
the correct one. On this interpretation, Mrs Yen-all's Rosy is 
the East will stand in marked contrast with Mrs Piper's 
Light in West. 

Next, let us turn to Mrs Holland's script : " Do you 
remember that exquisite sky when the afterglow made the 
East as beautiful and as richly coloured as the West Martha 



RECENT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 251 

became as Mary, and Leah as Rachel." Here the contrast 
! is transcended. East and West become as one. The two 
opposites are united and identified, even as though Dante's 
types of the Active and the Contemplative life had passed one 
into the other Martha had become as Mary, Leah as Rachel. 1 
Two further points remain to be noticed. First, Mr 
Piddington has given some plausible reasons for thinking that 
the mention in Mrs Holland's script of " the Constellation of 
Orion " is a reference to Maud. If this surmise is right, it 
provides another point of connection between Mrs Holland's 
script of the 8th of April and Mrs Verrall's of the same date. 
Secondly, the unification of East and West, explicit in Mrs 
Holland's script, is suggested in Mrs Verrall's also. For 
immediately preceding the line out of Maud misquoted in 
Mrs Verrall's script comes this verse : 






Blush from West to East, 
Blush from East to West ; 

Till the West is East, 
Blush it thro' the West. 



These various coincidences, and especially the way in which 
the different scripts fit into each other, seem to rank this case 
as a good example of a complementary correspondence, even 

en taken by itself. 

2. The next case, inferior to the preceding in respect of 
simultaneity in the production of the concordant scripts, is in 
other ways not less remarkable. It begins with two scripts 
written by Mrs Verrall : the second and most important of the 
two on the 25th of March, the earlier on the 4th of the same 
month. For reasons which will appear later, it is desirable to 
quote both of these scripts in full, or nearly so. 

Mrs Verrall" s Script of 4th March. 



Hercules Furens. Tell your husband from me, there is a passage in the 
Heracles not understood, about the pillar and the tying to it. An 
old story lies behind that but it means something in Euripides that 

1 See Dante, Convito, iv. 17 ; Purgatorio, xxvii. 97-108. 



252 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

A W V [i.e. Dr A. W. Verrall] has not yet seen. Tell him to look at 
it again it is the passage about the pillar and the thong the pillar 
at the foot of wh, lay the dead children. Tell your husband to read 
that again not to mind the mythology but to see another point \vh. 
will please him. 

I have long wanted to say this but the words were never there now all 
the words are there and I think I have made the meaning clear ask 
elsewhere for the BOUND HERCULES. 



Auo/t/,evos is the sequel. 
Binding and loosing Bfa-p.oi.a-L AVTOIS 

not adamantine fetters but fetters that link and loose. Something about 
snapping his bonds in sunder. Tell AWV he will understand. 

Mrs Verrall s Script of 25th March. 

Claviger the bearer of the Key and Club 
clavem gerens trans Pontem 




trans Hellespontem et insuper mare 

ad urbem antea Byzantineam postea de ipsius nomine nominatam. 

The Club and Key East and West, look for the Eastern sign of the 
Club ex pede Herculem. 

The Hercules story comes in there and the clue is in the Euripides play 
if you could only see it. 

Bound to the pillar I told you before of Sebastian, it is the same story 
of the archer and the binding to the pillar. 

I want a special message to get to you. I have tried several times, but 
you have not understood. I dont know where it went wrong. But 
let Piddington know when you get a message about shadow, 
remember the Virgilian line indignantis [sic] sub umbras. To you 
they are shadows like the shadows in Plato's cave but they are 
shadows of the real. 

quae cum vides bene comprehendere possis quae tibi nunc fusco colors 
obdita paene obscurata videntur, et tamen in somniis aliquando 
UMBRARUM volitantia corpora percipis immo pro corporibus 
animas dicere melius quae tibi per somnum mentem immortalia 
tangunt 

The shadow of a shade. 

That is better umbrarum umbras, O-KIUS tlouXov was what I wanted to get 
written. Good-bye. 



RECENT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 253 

A partial explanation of these curious rigmaroles will be 
| offered presently. For the moment, attention should be 
concentrated on two points about which there can be no 
mistake: (1) the mention of Euripides ; (2) the association 
of Euripides with one of his plays, the Hercules Furens. 
It is these which form Mrs Yen-all's contribution to the cross- 
correspondence we are now engaged upon ; and here again 
the words " ask elsewhere for the Bound Hercules " seem to 
indicate that a cross-correspondence was to be expected. 

Mrs Piper's contribution was not made until the 8th of 
April. On that day, when Myersp 1 was in the midst of 
an enumeration of words corresponding, as he claimed, to 
messages which he had given or was trying to give to Mrs 
Verrall, the following conversation took place with Mrs 
Sidgwick, who was in charge of the sitting : 



Myers P . Do you remember Euripides ? 

Mrs S. What is that ? " Euripides " ? 

Myers p. I meant to say Harold. 

Mrs S. " Harold"? 

Myers p. Yes, well. 

Mr* S. To whom did you say " Harold " ? 

Myersp. To Mrs V. 



There is some doubt as to what is intended by " Euripides 
... I meant to say Harold." The last words may mean that 
" Euripides " had been written in error for " Harold." But the 
error would be a strange one ; and it seems to me at least equally 
probable that what Myers P intended to say was that in addition 
to " Euripides " he had tried to give Mrs Verrall " Harold " 

1 The formula Myers P requires explanation. Most automatic writing takes 
the form of a communication ab extra ; but the scripts of the automatists who 
took part in the experiments described by Mr Piddington have the further 
peculiarity that they purport to be inspired by an identical group of spirit 
personalities. The protagonist among these claims to be F. W. H. Myers. 
Mr Piddington uses the symbols Myers P , Myers v , and Myers H to designate 
the Myers's influence as it is manifested in the script of Mrs Piper, Mrs Verrall, 
and Mrs Holland respectively. It is made quite clear, however, that this 
usage is only for convenience of description, and is not intended in any way to 
prejudge the answer that may eventually be given to questions concerning 
the real source and nature of the influence. 



254 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

also. In any case, it remains the fact that Mrs Piper's script 
of the 8th of April mentions " Euripides," and immediately 
afterwards " Harold." 

Mrs Holland's script of the 16th of April contains a 
passage which corresponds both to Mrs Verrall's of the 4th 
and of the 25th of March, and to Mrs Piper's of the 8th of 

April. 

Leopold. Lucus. 

Margaret. 

To fly to find Euripides. Philemon 

I want you to understand me, but I have so few chances to speak it's 
like waiting to take a ticket and I am always pushed away from the pigeon- 
hole before I can influence her mind No, the scribe's A peck of pickled 
pepper. 

Students of Browning will at once see in " Lucus [Lukos] 
to fly to find Euripides Philemon " allusions to Aristophanes' 
Apology, in which a translation of the Hercules Fur ens is 
incorporated. The mention of "Margaret" (Mrs Verrall's 
Christian name) in the middle of these allusions still further 
serves as a connecting link with Mrs Verrall's script, just as 
that of " Leopold " serves as a connecting link with Mrs 
Piper's script. For " Leopold " and " Harold " are the names 
of Frederic Myers's two sons. Miss Johnson (so Mr Piddington 
informs us) has no doubt that " a peck of pickled pepper " is a 
punning allusion to Mrs Piper. It is difficult to express any 
opinion on this without having more of Mrs Holland's script 
before us. Whether Miss Johnson's interpretation be well 
founded or not, the cross-correspondence is sufficiently striking 
without it. All three automatists mention Euripides by name. 
All three indicate more or less clearly that " Euripides " is the 
subject of a cross-correspondence. Two out of the three con- 
nect Euripides with the Hercules Furens, though the connec- 
tion is differently brought out by each. Two out of the three 
couple the mention of Euripides with the name of one of 
Frederic Myers's two sons, Harold and Leopold. 

3. In both the cases already described it is Mrs Holland's 
script which forms a kind of middle term between Mrs Verrall's 
and Mrs Piper's. In the third, the middle term is provided by 



RECENT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 255 

Mrs Verrall. It must be added that the third case is more 
disputable, because more fanciful, than either of the other two. 
Nevertheless I am inclined to think that Mr Piddington's inter- 
pretation of it as a triple cross-correspondence is probably, 
though not certainly, correct. 

The relevant passage in Mrs Verrall's script has been 
already quoted. It forms the second part of the " Euripides " 
script of the 25th of March, beginning with the words, " I want 
a special message to get to you." Reiteration of words or ideas 
intended to be significant is a very common feature of Mrs 
Verrall's automatic writing. The significant idea in this 
particular passage is evidently that conveyed by " shadow " 
(repeated no less than five times), "shade," "shadow of a 
shade," " umbras," "umbrarum umbrae," cnaa? etSwXo^. All these 
words and phrases are capable of bearing both a literal and 
a metaphorical meaning : indeed, there seems to be a transition 
the script from one to the other from the " shadow " which 
rkness to the " shade " which is the ghost or phantasm of 
e dead. The insistence with which the idea is repeated is 
sufficient of itself to suggest that a cross-correspondence may be 
intended ; but the words " Let Piddington know when you get a 
message about shadow " seem to leave no doubt upon the point. 

Only two days later (i.e. on 27th March) Mrs Holland 
produced a script beginning " Birds in the high Hall Garden- 
not Maud Sylvia," in which the words, " tenebrae," " darkness," 
" light and shadow shadow and light " occur within the space 
of a few lines. It will be observed that in Mrs Verrall's 
script "shadow" appears (1) in its literal sense as implying 
darkness, (2) in its metaphorical sense as equivalent to 
"phantom." Mrs Holland's script gives it in its literal 
sense only. To complete the cross-correspondence artistically, 

hantom" or some analogous word should appear in Mrs 
Piper's script. It is interesting therefore to find that on 
the 8th of April, at the very same sitting which produced 
both "Light in West" and " Euripides Harold," Myers P 
does actually claim to have given " spirit " to Mrs Verrall. 




256 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

As I have already said, the cross-correspondence thus 
arrived at is very distinctly weaker and less convincing than 
the two former ones. On the whole, however, I believe it to 
be genuine (i.e. not accidental) ; and an examination, which 
we have still to undertake, into the relation of the three cross- 
correspondences to one another will be found, I think, to 
support the belief. 

At first sight there might seem to be nothing to connect 
any of the three with any other, unless the opening passage of 
Mrs Holland's script of 27th March, " Birds in the high Hall 
Garden not Maud Sylvia," be held to provide such a connec- 
tion. For the reference to Maud gives a point of contact 
between " East and West " and " shadow " ; and the mention of 
" Sylvia " (Silvia is the name of Frederic Myers's only daughter) 
gives a point of contact with " Euripides." 

A much more intimate connection, however, is revealed by 
a careful study of Mrs Yen-all's two " Euripides " scripts of 
the 4th and the 25th of March, especially the latter. 

The first part of the script of the 25th of March seems to 
identify Hercules with Janus through their common epithet 
daviger, which means "key-bearer" as well as "club-bearer." 
In the bearer of the club and key the union of the East and 
West is typified. And as Hercules, the world-wide wanderer, 
may be said, like Xerxes, to have bridged the Hellespont, which 
divides East from West, so also he may be compared to the God 
of the twin countenance, who embraces in one single gaze Eoas 
paries Hesperiasque sitnul. 1 

Again, when the second half of the script of the 25th of 
March is read in the light of the script of the 4th of March, there 
emerges a direct association between the cr/aas etSaAov in which 
the former culminates and the individual " shade " of Heracles 
himself. For Mrs Verrall, whose contemporaneous notes are 
often the best interpreters of her own script, records at the 
time that the reference in the script of 4th March to the 
Hercules Unbound ('Hpa/cX^s Xvo/xei/o?) reminded her of a 

1 Ovid, Fasti, i. 140. 



RECENT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 257 

rpassage in Plotinus of which a translation is given in Myers's 

\Human Personality : " ' As the soul hasteneth,' " says Plotinus, 

l"'to the things that are above, she will ever forget the more ; 

| unless all her life on earth leave a memory of things done 

well. For even here may man do well if he stand clear of 

| the cares of earth. And he must stand clear of their memories 

I too ; so that one may rightly speak of a noble soul forgetting 

those things that are behind. And the shade of Heracles, 1 

'indeed, may talk of his own valour to the shades, but the 

I true Heracles in the true world will deem all that of little 

I worth ; being transported into a more sacred place, and 

I strenuously engaging, even above his strength, in those battles 

I in which the wise engage.' " 

If this interpretation be accepted and we are to see in 
I the " Unbound " Heracles of the script the " true " Heracles 
j of Plotinus, the cross- correspondences summed up in the 
words East and West, Euripides, and shadow, must them- 
selves be regarded as parts of a still more elaborate cross- 
correspondence, in which the first and third are brought 
into direct relation with the second, and so into indirect 
relation with each other. Mr Piddington believes them 
to be the starting-points of yet wider ramifications, and in 
supporting his argument shows much subtlety and acumen, 
though perhaps also a tendency to over-refining. Into this 
field, however, I will not attempt to follow him : what has 
already been given should suffice to serve its immediate 

rpose, which is that of illustration merely. 
I will now state very shortly the provisional conclusions 
cannot yet call them fully considered opinions which a first 
study of Mr Piddington's report has led me to form. 

1. The cross-correspondences presented by the different 
scripts are too numerous and too close to be the result of mere 
chance. 

2. They could, of course, be explained on the hypothesis of 

1 The allusion to the shade of Heracles in this passage is itself a 
dniscence of Odyssey, xi. 601-3. 
VOL. VII. No. 2, 17 



258 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

collusion. Nor do I think that this hypothesis can be absol- 
utely disproved. By many it will no doubt be accepted with 
all its difficulties in preference to conclusions repugnant to their 
settled preconceptions. But if it cannot be disproved, it may 
be disbelieved ; and personally I disbelieve it. 1 do so partly 
on grounds of internal evidence, partly because my knowledge 
of several of the individuals concerned forbids me to think 
them capable of engaging in a carefully prepared and long- 
sustained conspiracy to deceive. This, and nothing short of 
this, is involved if the phenomena are to be accounted for by 
collusion. The trickeries and frauds only too often practised 
by paid mediums at seances seem to me to stand on quite a 
different footing. 

3. If we exclude accidental coincidence and reject collusion, 
no explanation seems possible which does not in some shape 
or other presuppose telepathy. 

4. In some of the cross-correspondences, though not in all, the 
" complementary " character is sufficiently developed to make 
design and purposive action a probable inference, even if that in- 
ference had no foundation other than peculiarities of form alone. 

5. The argument in favour of design is, however, immensely 
strengthened by the circumstance that in many, perhaps in 
most, of the successful cases an intimation is given in one script 
that the subject of the cross- correspondence will be found in 
another. In Mrs Piper's script the intimation usually takes the 
form of a distinct claim that such and such a word or combina- 
tion of words has actually been given, or a statement that an 
attempt is being or will be made to give it, to Mrs Verrall. 1 
In the case of Mrs Verrall and Mrs Holland the intimation is 
in general much less explicit, and often absent altogether. 

6. If the exhibition of purpose and design be an admitted 
feature in the phenomena, a mere blind and haphazard tele- 
pathic rapport between the persons concerned in the experi- 

1 I do not recall at the moment any claim on the part of Mrs Piper's 
trance-personalities to have successfully conveyed a message to Mrs Holland. 
There is one rather doubtful case of such a claim with reference to Miss Verrall. 



RECENT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 259 

ments is not sufficient to account for them. Directing intelli- 
gence must come in somewhere, whether it be manifested in 
conveying appropriate ideas to other minds, or in extracting ap- 
propriate ideas from other minds, or in turning ideas acquired, 
whether actively or passively, from other minds to appropriate use. 

7. The above considerations, if sound, do a good deal to 
narrow the area of the problem. The question now takes this 
form : To what mind is the directing influence to be traced ? 
Two alternative answers suggest themselves : It may proceed 
from the mind of one or more of the persons concerned in 
the experiment; or, it may have its origin in some source 
wholly external to any of them. 

8. If we could eliminate the first alternative, and thereby 
establish the second, something approaching aprimafacie case 
would have been made out for accepting the account which 
the directing influence gives of itself, namely, that it proceeds 
from the surviving spirits of certain individuals who "have 
passed through the body and gone" always provided this 
explanation is not ruled out ab initio. So long as the bare 
possibility of communications from the dead is treated as an 
open question, it would savour of paradox, in the case of a 
cross-correspondence admitted to be due to the purposive 
action of some intelligence external to the living persons 
immediately concerned in it, to attribute that action to an 
absolutely unknown x rather than to the source from which it 
actually purports to come. 

9. Unfortunately, evidence that would exclude directive 
agency on the part of the automatists is very difficult to get. 1 

1 The difficulty, great in any case, is further increased by the conversa- 
tional method characteristic of the Piper script. The advantages which this 
method offers in the devising and carrying out of experiments are obvious ; 
the drawback is that the experimenter in charge, and the sitter, if any, may 
easily become important factors in the result. This is, perhaps, less felt in the 
case of cross-correspondences than in that of other "psychical" phenomena. 
Some of Mrs Piper's most successful " hits " outside of cross-correspondences 
are strongly suggestive of ordinary thought-transference from those present. 
I should be inclined to put the Plotinus and Abt Fogler incidents both in this 
class. See Mr Piddington's report, pp. 59 and 107. 



260 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

It may, indeed, be conceded that intelligent action directed 
towards an end must be conscious action ; and further, that we 
may have good ground for believing (as I think we have in 
the present instance) that the automatists are genuinely uncon- 
scious of any action taken by them of a nature to produce a 
given cross-correspondence. But this is not sufficient. The 
phenomena of automatic writing, like those of hypnotism, 
seem to point to what is sometimes described as " dissociation 
of the personality," whereby an element of the normal self 
may be supposed to become in a lesser or greater degree 
divided off from that self and to acquire for the time being 
a certain measure of independence. It would appear to be 
with this secondary self (or selves, if there be more than one 
of them) that we have to reckon in dealing with the facts of 
automatism, rather than with the normal self ; and deductions 
drawn from the consciousness or unconsciousness of the latter 
may be altogether inapplicable to the former. How ready these 
secondary selves are to act a part, and how cleverly they often 
do so, the experience of hypnotism is there to show. 

10. I have now indicated the two rival hypotheses that 
seem to me on the whole to afford the most probable explana- 
tions of the phenomena of cross -correspondences. One of these 
attributes the production of the cross-correspondences to the 
directive agency of the secondary self of one of the automatists 
(or it may be the secondary selves of more than one co-oper- 
ating together). According to the other, these secondary selves 
are passive instruments played upon by intelligences external to 
them, which there is some prima facie ground for accepting as 
what they represent themselves to be, namely, spirits yet living 
that once were human beings in the flesh. I am well aware 
that to many people both these hypotheses will appear utterly 
fantastic and impossible. To me, both seem possible, and 
neither proved. But I do not see how any number of cross- 
correspondences, as such, will help us to decide between them. 

G. W. BALFOUR. 



NEW FACTS ON OUR SURVIVAL 
OF DEATH. 

JOHN W. GRAHAM, M.A., 

Principal of Dalton Hall, University of Manchester. 

IT is generally known that thirty years ago Frederic 
W. H. Myers, one of the greatest men of our generation, 
combining as he did extraordinary faculty as a man of letters 
and a man of science with high academic standing and 
strong spiritual intuition, determined to devote the rest of 
his life to the investigation of a group of phenomena of 
which no scientific explanation had yet been found. He 
found in Edmund Gurney a colleague of singular like-minded- 
ness, extensive leisure, and good literary and scientific powers, 
and on the initiative of Professor Barrett of Dublin, the 
Society for Psychical Research was launched in 1881. Dr 
Richard Hodgson, an acute and sceptical thinker, who was at 
that time an expert in Herbert Spencer's philosophy and a 
man of much practical wit, shortly joined the band, and it has 
worked on under the constant play of showers of sceptical 
criticism from Mrs Sidgwick and Mr F. Podmore. It has 
issued twenty -two volumes of Proceedings and thirteen volumes 
of Journal, and there have been produced the great work 
Phantasms of the Living and the still greater work of 
F. W. H. Myers, published after his death under the title of 
Human Personality. Other subsidiary literature has flowed 
from other pens. Then in succession came the deaths of 
Gurney, Sidgwick, Myers, and Hodgson. But this is a work 

261 



262 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

which, if there is anything in it, may perhaps be carried on from 
both sides of the chasm of death ; and for the past five years, 
amid many bogus imitations, there appears to have come a 
stream of communication from the departed leaders, which I 
venture to claim has now reached evidential force and volume. 
Communications have to pass through a medium's hand or 
voice ; she has to write or to speak ; how are we to know that 
the communication does not come from some subliminal part of 
herself, or by thought transference from someone else on earth ? 
If it be accepted, as it is accepted, that the subliminal self of each 
of us may carry on communication with the subliminal self of 
another without our knowledge or the other's knowledge, and 
that anything that is in anyone else's mind may conceivably, by 
stretching improbabilities, be thus transferred to the medium's 
mind, it will be seen how difficult it is to choose material 
which will be evidence of a communication from the departed. 
Myers and his friends recommended when they were here that 
we should all write in a sealed envelope some word, or fact, or 
allusion, which we should leave behind us in the hands of a 
trusted friend, hoping that if we were able to tell the contents 
of the envelope from the other side before the envelope itself 
was opened, that would constitute a proof of our survival. 
But it appears as though accidental, merely superficial know- 
ledge of that kind rarely survives into the memory of the next 
life, and no such experiment has yet been successful except a 
remote one in America many years ago. Myers, therefore, the 
initiator as ever of new work, conceived the idea about two 
years after his death that is at least what purports to have 
happened that he would try to give through two or more 
different mediums communications which make no sense in 
isolation, but which dovetail into one another and show an 
independent mind behind them both ; the communications to 
the two or more mediums being so different that it would be 
plain that telepathy had not taken place between them. The 
mediums used have been Mrs Piper, the experienced lady 
who has worked so long with Dr Hodgson at Boston, and 



NEW FACTS 263 

whose communications have already given such strong evidence 
of survival as to convince most of those who have studied them ; 
Mrs Verrall, the wife of Dr Verrall of Cambridge, her daughter 
Miss Verrall, Mrs Thompson, and the Anglo-Indian lady who 
goes under the name of Mrs Holland. Three Parts of the 
Proceedings, dealing chiefly with the script of Mrs Verrall, 
Mrs Holland, and Mrs Piper respectively, have been published 
[ Parts liii., lv., and Ivii.). It is almost impossible to give in a 

>rief form an intelligible account of experiments which are so 
>mplicated and which depend upon detail for their value, but 
will here attempt a summary of one from Part Ivii. edited 

>y Mr Piddington which I will call 

CALM IN TENNYSON AND PLOTINUS. 

On the 29th of January 1907, Mrs Verrall propounded to 
ie Myers of the Piper trance a test question, which had been 
carefully selected so as to be wholly meaningless to Mrs Piper 
herself, and to suggest matter which was so familiar to 
Frederic Myers in his life, and had entered so fully into his 
habitual thoughts, that there was good hope of his recollecting 
it. On account of the difficulty of getting questions through 
the well-intentioned but rather ill-educated amanuensis called 
" Rector," who appears to work Mrs Piper's hand, the question 
had to be very short ; and in order to avoid the chance of lucky 
guesses, and to make the result comfortably certain, this short 
question was to be such as would have large allusiveness, and 
might open up many recollections in the mind of Myers. It 
was thought also that if the question bore some kind of affinity 
to a subject already touched by Myers, though an affinity 
unrecognisable by the medium, there would be still more hope 
that his mind would again travel on that path. It was also 
necessary that the result should be verifiable, and riot dependent 
upon Mrs Verrall's or upon anyone else's impressions. These 
conditions appeared to be all fulfilled by the three Greek words 
avros ovpcwos aKVfjbojv (" the very heavens without a wave "), 
which were painfully spelt out, frequently repeated so as to be 



264 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

transmitted correctly, and plainly caught by Myers on the 
above date. 

These words are from the Enneades of Plotinus, and are 
part of a description of the circumstances which accompany 
and condition ecstasy ; that is, the condition in which the soul 
is sufficiently separated from the body, or from the bodily 
interests, to be in such close communion with the divine as to 
receive visions in rapt contemplation. The last of the three 
words is a rare one, not known even to Mr Piddington, 
still less, of course, to the absolutely Greekless minds of 
Mrs Piper and of " Rector." 

Now for the connection of the words with F. W. H. Myers. 

In his treatment of Ecstasy in Human Personality (Epilogue, 

vol. ii. p. 291), he quotes the paragraph in which they occur, 

not in Greek but in English. He translates the sentence 

containing them " Calm be the earth, the sea, the air, and 

let Heaven itself be still." Moreover, the actual Greek words 

are used by Myers as the motto to his poem on Tennyson, 

which is printed in Fragments of Prose and Poetry (p. 117). 

These words, which state that clear outward calm in nature is 

propitious to the trance condition of ecstasy, were pretty sure 

to have been often pondered by Myers in writing his careful 

inquiry into the experience of ecstasy an inquiry, it is safe 

to say, more scientific, more wide in its outlook, alike more 

penetrating and more comprehensive, than any preceding 

treatment of the phenomenon. It was therefore reasonable to 

expect that Myers would still be able to translate the words 

and to quote illustrative allusions to its subject matter from 

Tennyson and from Plotinus, and possibly from his own 

works. It was not yet seen by any of the experimenters how 

closely connected were Tennyson and Plotinus in the mind of 

Myers, and probably also in the mind of Tennyson himself; 

and how deeply appropriate it was that that motto from 

Plotinus should be placed at the head of a poem on Tennyson. 

The words out of that poem to which the motto is appropriate 

are these : 



NEW FACTS 265 

Once more he rises ; lulled and still, 

Hushed to his tune the tideways roll ; 
These waveless heights of evening thrill 

With voyage of the summoned Soul. 

The allusion is, of course, to Tennyson's Crossing the Bar ; 
they are indeed little but a paraphrase of that lovely lyric : 

And may there be no moaning of the bar, 
When I put out to sea, 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 

Too full for sound and foam, 

When that which drew from out the boundless deep 
Turns again home. 

r e have therefore to do with the idea of calm, particularly 

a preliminary to spiritual exaltation ; calm of nature as 
mducive to calm of spirit ; and we shall expect, if the experi- 
ment be successful, allusions to that idea in Tennyson, and 
reference to Plotinus. 

It was carefully discovered that Mrs Piper had never seen 
the volume, Fragments of Prose and Poetry, and even if she 
had read the English rendering of the words in Human 
Personality, it would not convey the Greek. 

A previous connection with the words " halcyon days " in 
Mrs Yen-all's script was, as was intended, remote and unrecog- 
nisable. Let it be remembered that we have to do in this 
investigation with the operation of a mind which appears to 
dream, and to bring out of its treasures unexpected allusions, 
glimmering attempts at a central idea, which it apparently 
takes time and effort for the speaker to make clear, and then 
to pass through an ill-made machine. It is something like 
writing a letter in the dark, which you hand to a sleepy post- 
man, who will carry it through an unknown land, past 
ancient block-houses of prohibitive tariffs and along unsealed 
passes, to a temporary and movable address ; and the responses 
are brought by dictation to an illiterate scribe, who does not 
always know the meaning of what he writes. 

We shall not, therefore, be surprised that the first answers 
to the test question were glimmering approaches to it only. 



266 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

The day that the question was propounded, Myers, through 
Mrs Piper, alluded to a " haven of rest," which he connected 
with a low armchair in Mrs Verrall's house, and to " celestial 
halcyon days," both of which he claimed to have referred to 
in her earlier script since he left this life. This was, on the 
whole, a well-founded claim, and it was doubtless made because 
Mrs Verrall had told him that the answer to her question would 
have some slight connection with something previously given. 
We thus see him on the right track, having apparently caught 
the idea of calm. He went on to speak of " larches " and 
" laburnum." A dreamer who was dreaming of Tennyson in 
connection with the word " halcyon " might easily pass on to 
the verse : 

When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, 
And rarely pipes the mounted thrush ; 
Or underneath the barren bush 

Flits by the sea-blue bird of March. 

For the " sea-blue bird of March " is the kingfisher or halcyon. 
Just at the end of the sitting, however, all that could be 
expressed was the word " larches," and that led on to another 
nature reminiscence from In Memoriam : " laburnums dropping 
wells of fire." All this would deserve the name of fanciful 
if it stood alone ; but we will proceed. 

We now turn to Mrs Verrall's script, which on the 12th 
of February ran thus : 

The voyage of Maeldune faery lands forlorn and noises of the western sea 

thundering noises of the western sea. 
It is about Merlin and Arthur's realm Merlin's prophetic vision "all 

night long mid thundering noises of the western sea " and how he 

would not go the passing of Arthur. 
And then the island valley of Avilion where blows not any wind nor ever 

falls the least light no not that but you have the sense there falls 

no rain nor snow nor any breath of wind shakes the least leaf. 
I will try to get the idea elsewhere conveyed but it is hard and I know 

I have failed before. Why will you not put the signature ? Surely 

you know now that it is not you. FWHM. 

Here we have more Tennysonian calm with the island 
valley of Avilion, which he could not manage to quote quite 



NEW FACTS 267 

correctly. The words near the end, " Why will you not 
put the signature? Surely you know now that it is not 
you. FWHM," appear to be remarks which have leaked 
through, addressed by Myers to Mrs Verrall as medium. 

The Keats quotation " faery lands forlorn," is also used as 
itle of a poem by Myers published in his Fragments, and in 
iat poem are references to " that heaven-high vault serene," 
id " unearthly calms." He is thus giving a clear allusion from 
lis own words to the idea required of him. Myers's poem 
>eaks of a voyage north from Aalesund to " Isles unnamed 
gulfs unvoyaged," just as does the Voyage of Maeldune. 

We have, therefore, here an allusion than which few could 
tave been more characteristic of Myers and more appropriate 
the idea he was desired to convey. 
On the 25th of February Mrs VerralTs hand wrote : 

I stretch my hand across the vapourous space, the interlunar space twixt 
moon and earth where the gods of Lucretius quaff their nectar. 
Do you not understand ? 

The lucid interspace of world and world Well, that is bridged by the 
thought of a friend, bridged before for your passage, but to-day for 
the passage of any that will walk it, not in hope but in faith. 

[ere is an allusion to the Lucretius of Tennyson, to a passage 
lescriptive altogether of calm contemplation and such com- 
mnion as is possible to men : 

The Gods, who haunt 
The lucid interspace of world and world, 
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind, 
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, 
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, 
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar 
Their sacred everlasting calm ! And such, 
Not all so fine, nor so divine a calm, 
Not such nor all unlike it, man may gain 
Letting his own life go. 

the next day we have, through Mrs Verrall's hand, 
the first reference to the three Greek words connected with 

Crossing the Bar : 

I think I have made him [probably "Rector"] understand, but the 
best reference to it will be made elsewhere, not Mrs Piper at all. 



268 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

I think I have got some words from the poem written down if not 

stars and satellites, another phrase will do as well. And may there 

be no moaning at the bar my Pilot face to face. 
The last poems of Tennyson and Browning should be compared. There 

are references in her writing to both Helen's, I mean. 
The fighter fights one last fight, but there is peace for him too in the end 

and peace for the seer who knew that after after the earthquake, 

and the fire and the wind, after, after, in the stillness comes the voice 

that can be heard. 

Here we have the first clear allusion to the connection 
between the motto from Plotinus and the poem Crossing the 
Bar, to which it alluded in Myers' poem on Tennyson. He 
evidently feels the difficulty of communication, and adds that 
though he cannot get the allusion " sunset and evening star," 
he does get part of the lines about "the pilot" and the 
" moaning at the bar." He then alludes to the well-worn 
comparison of this last poem of Tennyson's with Browning's 
valediction to life : 

" Strive and thrive ! " cry " Speed, fight on, face ever 
There as here." 

The appropriateness of the comparison of Tennyson the seer, 
to Browning the fighter, is plain ; and finally, we have the 
allusion to the " still small voice " heard by Elijah on Mount 
Horeb. 

On the 6th of March Mrs Verrall's hand wrote : 

I have tried to tell him of the calm, the heavenly and earthly calm, but I 
do not think it is clear. I think you would understand if you could 
see the record. Tell me when you have understood. 

Calm is the sea and in my heart, if calm at all, if any calm, a calm 
despair. 

That is only part of the answer just as it is not the final thought. 
The symphony does not close upon despair but on harmony. So 
does the poem. Wait for the last word. 

Here we have more allusions to the same thought, though 
Myers expresses doubt as to whether he has made " Rector " 
understand ; but he thinks that the record of the Piper 
trances will be plain to Mrs Verrall. He then runs in another 
quotation from In Memoriam, but corrects its final word, inas- 



NEW FACTS 269 

much as the conclusion of that poem is hope and not despair. 
He put his special signature to this bit of script. 

Then on the llth of March we have a beautiful passage 
written by Mrs Yen-all's hand, dwelling on the fact that both 
Plato and Tennyson had communion with the unseen : 

Violet and olive leaf purple and hoary. 

The city of the violet and olive crown. 

News will come of her. Of Athens 

The shadow of the Parthenon. It is a message from Plato that I want to 

send. It has been given elsewhere, but should be completed here. 

It is about dim, seen forms, half seen in the evenings grey by a boy 

and afterwards woven into words that last I want to say it again. 

I think there is a verse in Tennyson about it. 
Plato and the shadow and the unseen or half-seen companionship shapes 

seen in the glimpses of the moonlit heights. 
To walk with Plato (or some phrase like that), with voiceless communing, 

and unseen Presence felt. (No, you don't get it right.) Presences 

on the eternal hills (that is better). The Presence that is on the 

lonely hills. (That is all for now. Wait.) 

This script is an allusion to Frederic Myers's poem on The 
Collected Works of G. F. Watts :- 

Then as he walked, like one who dreamed, 

Through silent highways silver-hoar, 
More wonderful that city seemed, 

And he diviner than before : 
A voice was calling, " All is well " ; 

Clear in the vault Selene shone, 
And over Plato's homestead fell 

The shadow of the Parthenon. 

For purposes of mere evidence it is enough to say that 
Tennyson and Plotinus, who were plainly connected in the 
mind of Frederic Myers, were also connected in the script ; 
and any reader who feels that he would like to keep his mind 
closely bent upon the thread of evidence, will do well to skip 
the following paragraphs. It is in itself, however, a deeply 
interesting quest to point out how the great mystics in all 
ages speak the same tongue. 

It is well known that Tennyson was all his life subject to 
periods of trance, which he could sometimes produce by the 
device of repeating his own name over and over; he was 



270 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

" wound into the great Soul," had the sensation of leaving his 
body and living in a larger air, a consciousness of exalted 
happiness and communion, at once broken by any interruption, 
or even by his own hand suddenly touching the table. He 
gives an account of this experience in In Memoriam, stanza 
xcv., in The Ancient Sage, and in Arthur's speech at the 
conclusion of the Holy Grail, and it is referred to pretty fully 
in his son's Memoir. 

With regard to the particular point of the desirability of 
external calm to induce ecstasy, Mrs Verrall has noted that 
before the trance described in In Memoriam, xcv., there was 

Calm that let the tapers burn 
Unwavering : not a cricket chirred ; 
The brook alone far off was heard, 
And on the board the ff uttering urn, 

and that the vision " was stricken through with doubt " in the 
sudden breeze of dawn. Mrs Verrall also points out that there 
are some interesting verbal parallels between In Memoriam 
and Plotinus, who speaks of the " illuminating entry of the 
soul bringing a golden vision." Tennyson speaks of " the 
spirits' golden day." " Ionian " occurs in both writers, and 
both speak of " That which is " as compared with the present, 
past, and future ideas appropriate to time, which is a mere 
image of eternity. It is known also that Arthur Hallam, the 
subject of In Memoiiam, was a student of Plotinus. 

We will now turn to Mrs Piper's trance, which we left on 
the 30th of January, giving then its first hints of a solution to 
the question which had been propounded to those who write 
through her hand the day before. 

On the 6th of March there were written by her hand the 
three words, " Cloudless Sky Horizon. Don't you under- 
stand ? " and immediately afterwards the sentence : " A cloud- 
less sky beyond the horizon." This is a paraphrase of the three 
Greek test- words. Mrs Piper's trance concludes with a waking 
stage, in which, after the writing has ceased, she utters all kinds 
of disconnected sentences, during the time when her personality 



NEW FACTS 271 

is resuming control, or, as Myers put it, through her hand, 
" When the spirit is returning to this light." The things said 
at this time are probably partly Mrs Piper's own and partly 
from the same source as her script ; they are often faint, and 

Konly be caught by putting the ear close to her mouth. 
When she was thus recovering after this sitting, she 
I, " Moaning at the bar when I put out to sea." Shortly 
alter she uttered " Arthur Hallam " twice, and " Good-bye, 
Margaret " (the Christian name of Mrs Verrall, who, however, 
was not present). She then said for the third time, " Arthur 
Hallam. Myers said it was he. He says that he will give 
evidence, and he is glad to know that he had a good definite 
idea in his innermost soul. He said it affected his innermost 
soul to talk to you, and he was so glad." 

Then, a week later, at the next sitting, Myers, through 
Mrs Piper, attempted to draw roughly what was said to 
represent a bar in fact, three attempts at drawing it were 
made altogether. He claimed that he had spoken of " crossing 
the bar" to Mrs Verrall also, which was quite true, though 
at that time unknown to Mr Piddington, the experimenter. 
Myers also declared that he had tried to draw a bar with 
Mrs Verrall, adding, " I thought she might get a glimpse of 
my understanding of her Greek." Then Hodgson appeared 
and asked whether Mrs Verrall had drawn a bar. Myers 
also came and asked the same question. As a fact, this drawing 
had not succeeded, though Mrs Verrall had written, " May 
there be no moaning at the bar." Myers replied that he was 
not sure that he had succeeded in giving her the full im- 
pression, but that he had quoted the words to her as well as 
to Mrs Piper. He added that he had given to Mrs Piper 
both the words " Arthur Hallam " and the drawing of the 
bar " so as to get the words with the author's individuality." 

These references to Hallam and Crossing the Bar occurred 
in Mrs Piper's trance before Mrs Verrall had grasped the 
significance of the appearances in her script of the Tennysonian 
quotations. She did not see the point till six days later; 



272 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

and the paraphrase, " cloudless sky beyond the horizon," does 
not appear with Mrs Verrall at all, and could not have come 
from her. 

To sum up in the words of Mr Piddington : "It appears 
that in the absence of all intercourse between Mrs Piper and 
Mrs Verrall after 30th January, on the one hand, the * Myers ' 
of Mrs Verrall's script on 26th February and 6th March respec- 
tively, connected Crossing the Bar and In Memoriam with 
auros ovpavbs aKvpuv ; while, on the other hand, the ' Myers ' 
of Mrs Piper's trance on 6th March alluded to Crossing the 
Bar and mentioned the name * Arthur Hallam ' in close con- 
junction with Mrs Verrall's Christian name ; claimed on 13th 
March to have given to Mrs Verrall a quotation from Crossing 
the Bar, and further explained that he thought this reference 
would make Mrs Verrall understand in part what significance 
the Greek words had for him." 

The situation then was that, whilst abundant allusion to the 
Tennysonian connection with the three Greek words had been 
made, the passage in Human Personality where they are trans- 
lated, and the name of their author Plotinus, had not yet 
appeared. It was therefore thought better to see whether this 
field also would yield a harvest, and for that purpose Mrs 
Verrall sat with Mrs Piper on the 29th of April, and asked Myers 
if he could make allusion to some other group of associations, 
and also give the author's name. No clue was given to Myers 
to guide him as to which of his communications had been found 
to be answers to the question. 

This was a very confused sitting, possibly due to the 
newness of the experimenters and their difficulty in deciphering 
the script ; and to everyone's surprise allusions, evidently made 
with great difficulty, occurred to Swedenborg, to Dante, to 
St Paul, and to Francis of Assisi. References also occurred to 
" Azure a blue sky," and to " Halcyon days," both concordant 
with the central idea. Still this was not what was wanted. 

The next sitting produced even more unexpected results, 
inasmuch as Myers stated that the three Greek words reminded 



hi 



NEW FACTS 273 



him of " Homer's Illiard." This piece of illiteracy only shows 
how great are the mechanical difficulties in passing a word 
through. Without definitely giving the author's name, we have 
first an attempt to begin the word Plato, and then we have 
the word " Socratese." 

This was very confusing to all the experimenters, and 
med as though it might be nothing better than bad guessing ; 
e riddle was hard to read ; it was all the better riddle for 
at, nevertheless. Afterwards Mrs Verrall remembered that 
Human Personality, near the Plotinus passage wherein the 
three Greek words are translated, occurs an account of the 
famous vision of Socrates, described in the Crito of Plato, in 
which a fair and white-robed woman appeared to him in his 
prison, and quoted to him, as he waited for death, a line from 
the Iliad (ix. 363) " On the third day hence thou comest to 
Phthia's fertile shore." Socrates took this as a promise of im- 
mortality, whence came its fitting place in Human Personality. 
Further, the original Greek of this passage from the Crito 
is given as the motto to the Epilogue of Human Personality, 
in which the passage from Plotinus occurs. The experi- 
menters now felt that they understood the allusion to the 
Iliad, though neither the word " Iliad " nor the word " Homer " 
occurs in the text of Human Personality at that place. Surely 
no one but Myers could have made that allusion. As Mr 
Piddington says : "It would not, therefore, have been possible 
for anyone but a Greek scholar, familiar with Greek literature, 
to discover from these pages of Human Personality any con- 
nection between the vision of Socrates and Homer's Iliad, 
even if he had sufficient familiarity with these pages to be re- 
minded of the vision of Socrates by an allusion to the vision 
of Plotinus." 

In this chapter on Ecstasy in Human Personality we have 
the passage : "We need not deny the transcendental ecstasy 
to any of the strong souls who have claimed to feel it; 
to Elijah or to Isaiah, to Plato or to Plotinus, to St John 
or to St Paul, to Buddha or Mahomet, to Virgil or Dante, to 

VOL. VII. No. 2. 18 



274 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

St Theresa or to Joan of Arc, to Kant or to Swedenborg, to 
Wordsworth or to Tennyson." 

On the same page we find the passage : " Our daily bread 
is as symbolical as the furniture of Swedenborg's heavens and 
hells. . . . Plotinus, * the eagle soaring above the tomb of 
Plato,' is lost to sight in the heavens. . . . But the prosaic 
Swede his stiff mind prickly with dogma, the opaque cell walls 
of his intelligence flooded cloudily by the irradiant day this 
man, by the very limitations of his faculty, by the practical 
humility of a spirit trained to inquiry but not to generate 
truth, has awkwardly laid the corner stone, grotesquely sketched 
the elevation of a temple which our remotest posterity will be 
upbuilding and adorning still." 

In the Epilogue of Human Personality we find this signifi- 
cant passage : " I believe that some of those who once were 
near to us are already mounting swiftly upon this heavenly 
way. And when from that cloud encompassing of unforgetful 
souls some voice is heard, as long ago, there needs no 
heroism, no sanctity, to inspire the apostle's eVitfu/u'a efc TO 
cu/aXvcrcu, the desire to lift our anchor, and to sail out beyond 
the bar. What fitter summons for man than the wish to live 
in the memory of the highest soul that he has known, now 
risen higher to lift into an immortal security the yearning 
passion of his love ? ' As the soul hasteneth,' says Plotinus, 
' to the things that are above, she will ever forget the more ; 
unless all her life on earth leave a memory of things done 
well.'" 

Here in one paragraph we have Myers's deepest and most 
original thought, beginning with a quotation from the Apostle 
on whose inward experience he had based in earlier life his 
well-known mystical poem St Paul. Next comes an allusion 
to Crossing the Bar, and finally a passage from Plotinus ; all 
within a few lines. 

Without actually giving as yet the name of the author 
of the three Greek words, it may surely be said that the 
communications are full of Myers's rich and radiating person- 



L 

ki 



NEW FACTS 275 




ity, not easy to mistake for anyone else's by any who 
knew him. 

But we now come to the final achievement. On the 6th of 
May, Mrs Sidgwick, before she had asked a single question in 

e Piper trance, was met by the word "Plotinus," to be 
nsmitted with every sign of triumphant emphasis to Mrs 

errall. The atmosphere of the interview was like that after 
athletic contest in which victory had been won ; Myers 
congratulated himself on having fully answered the Greek as 
he had previously answered a certain important Latin question. 
He said that he had " caught " Rector at their last meeting, 
and had spelled it out to him clearly. 

That there are great difficulties to overcome in these trans- 
missions is what we should expect ; and that it actually is so 
is plain from the gradual process by which success arrives. 
As Mr Piddington acutely remarks, the first shots at the 
Tennysonian allusions in the words " larches " and " laburnum " 
indirect, only partial answers as they were were given on the 
day after the test question was put ; and when a new set of 
associations was demanded we had Homer's Iliad, Socrates, 
Swedenborg, St Paul, and Dante the dramatis personse, in 
fact, of the concluding chapters of Human Personality, before 
the awakening strands of earth memory gave forth the name 
Plotinus. 

By way of guarding against a telepathic origin for the 
messages from a mind still on earth, it may be noted that the 
whole range of thought and knowledge is alien from the circle 
of Mrs Piper's mind ; that Mr Piddington declares himself to 
have been wholly unaware of all the literary connections and 
allusions brought out, and wholly unable to assist the medium 
unconsciously in any way, and that Mrs Verrall the only 
other person concerned did not know or think of a large part 
of this complex of allusions, and did not even recognise them 
in the script until the 12th of March, which is after the Piper 
answers of 6th March had come. It is also hard to understand, 
if her subliminal mind is to be credited with both her own and 



276 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Mrs Piper's script, why the name Plotinus, which must have 
been on the tip of her tongue of expectation all the time, was 
the last to be unearthed. The telepathic hypothesis will, I 
think, be found insufficient by anyone who reads the scripts. 
Mrs Verrall's mind is the only one on earth which needs 
consideration as a possible source of the knowledge displayed ; 
but it is not only knowledge that is displayed, but every token 
of a particular personality. There are conversations overheard 
between the communicators, their amanuensis, and their 
medium, either spoken during the waking stage of trance, or 
written by the hand. Moreover, we must remember that we 
can only properly regard the subliminal self, enlightening 
generalisation as it is of many phenomena, telepathic, hypnotic, 
and so forth, as an entity provisionally covering a good many 
facts, not as an actually defined organism, the bounds of whose 
faculties are even beginning to be known. There may be 
several subliminal selves, or it may be rather a link of 
connection with other potencies behind it than a great organ 
in itself. In any case, if all this is due to the operation of 
Mrs Verrall's underlying mind, it is entirely unique among 
our records. 

The narrative which 1 have attempted here to summarise, 
and which covers 65 pages of Proceedings, Part Ivii., is only 
one though one of the best of twenty-three cross - 
correspondences described in this volume, in addition to the 
eight which were described in Miss Johnson's paper on Mrs 
Holland in Part Iv. The care shown over minutiae by Mr 
Piddington, and the perfect candour of his exposition, win 
the reader's confidence ; his ingenuity in the tracking of 
allusions, and insight into the working of the fragmentary 
mental operations of the trance personalities, is nothing less 
than delightful to those who care for intellectual athletics and 
like to see a mark neatly hit. 

If the curious reader wants to know what news of our 
life hereafter is vouchsafed by this revelation, the best answer 
is to exhort to patience and to be cautious in statement. 



NEW FACTS 



277 



"Myers" and "Hodgson" declare that they are very much more 
alive than they were on earth, that they are not really dream- 
ing, that they would not desire to come back again, and that 
they are still, nevertheless, in possession of much at any rate 
>f the memories and attachments of earth ; they say that they 

re still almost as far as we are from the innermost Presence 

id Counsel of God, but they confirm the claims and sanctions 
>f the religious life. They state that a period of unconscious- 
icss, varying in length, supervenes upon death a period 
inusually prolonged in Myers's case ; and that after a few years 

-say half a dozen the spirit moves in its development too 
far from earth life to have any further communication with 
it. Doubtless there are numerous exceptions to this ; and we 

ither that Myers himself is voluntarily staying near us for 

ic sake of the service of our faith. 



JOHN W. GRAHAM. 



MANCHESTER. 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE EARTH-SOUL 
AND OF BEINGS INTERMEDIATE 
BETWEEN MAN AND GOD. 

AN ACCOUNT OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
G. T. FECHNER. 

PROFESSOR WILLIAM JAMES. 

FECHNER and Hegel are both pantheists, and in a sense 
Fechner writes himself down as an absolutist. But the 
methods and intellectual atmospheres of the two men are so 
different that it seems to mock every real ground of relation- 
ship to refer them to the same type. Hegel is the very 
paragon of a rationalist, Fechner the very paragon of an 
empiricist. If thinkers who go from parts towards wholes are 
ever to be convinced of an absolute spirit's existence, it can 
never be by the style of reasoning of Hegel or his disciples. 
It may be by Fechner's way of reasoning. Before giving my 
sketch of it, let me rehearse a few of the facts of Fechner's life. 
Born in 1801, son of a poor country pastor in Saxony, he 
lived from 1817 to 1887, when he died seventy years, therefore 
at Leipzig, a typical gelehrter of the old-fashioned German 
stripe. His means were always scanty, and his only extrava- 
gances could be in the way of thought, but they were gorgeous. 
He passed medical examinations at Leipzig University at the 
age of twenty-one, but decided, instead of becoming a doctor, to 
devote himself to physical science. It was ten years before he 
was made professor of physics, although he soon was authorised 

278 



THE EARTH-SOUL 279 

to lecture. Meanwhile, he had to make both ends meet, and 
this he did by voluminous literary labours. He translated, 
for example, Biot's treatise on Physics and Thenard's on 
Chemistry, four and six volumes respectively, with enlarged 
editions later. He edited repertories of chemistry and physics, 
a pharmaceutical journal, and an encyclopaedia in eight 
volumes, of which he wrote about one-third. He published 
>hysical treatises and experimental investigations of his own, 
jcially in electricity. Electrical measurements are the 
;is of the science, and Fechner's measurements in galvan- 
>m, performed with the simplest self-made apparatus, are 
jsic to this day. During this time he also published a 
lumber of half-philosophical, half-humorous writings, which 
lave gone through several editions, under the name of Dr 
[ises, as well as poems, literary and artistic essays, and other 
sasional articles. 

But overwork, poverty, and an eye trouble produced by his 
>bservations on after-images in the retina (also a classic piece 
investigation) produced in Fechner, then about thirty-eight 
rears old, a terrific attack of nervous prostration with painful 
lyperaesthesia of all the functions, from which he suffered 
:hree years, cut off entirely from active life. Present-day 
ledicine would have classed poor Fechner's malady quickly 
enough as partly a habit-neurosis ; but its severity was such 
iat in his day it was treated as a visitation incomprehensible 
its malignity ; and when he suddenly began to get well, both 
Fechner and others treated the recovery as a sort of divine 
miracle. This illness, bringing Fechner face to face with 
inner desperation, made a great crisis in his life. " Had I not 
then clung to the faith," he writes, "that clinging to faith 
would somehow or other work its reward, so hatte ich jene 
zeit nicht ausgehalten." His religious and cosmological faiths 
saved him thenceforward one great aim with him was to 
work out and communicate these faiths to the world. He did 
so on the largest scale ; but he did many other things too ere 
he died. 



280 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

A book on the atomic theory, classic also ; four elaborate 
mathematical and experimental volumes on what he called 
psychophysics many persons consider Fechner to have prac- 
tically founded scientific psychology in the first of these books ; 
a book on organic evolution ; two works on experimental 
aesthetics, in which again Fechner is considered by some 
judges to have laid the foundations of a new science, must be 
included among these other performances. Of the more 
religious and philosophical works I shall immediately give a 
further account. 

All Leipzig mourned him when he died, for he was the 
pattern of the ideal German scholar, as daringly original in 
his thought as he was homely in his life, a modest, genial, 
laborious slave to truth and learning, and withal the owner 
of an admirable literary style of the vernacular sort. The 
materialistic generation, that in the fifties and sixties called his 
speculations fantastic, had been replaced by one with greater 
liberty of imagination, and a Preyer, a Wundt, a Paulsen, and 
a Lasswitz could now speak of Fechner as their master. 

His mind was indeed one of those multitudinously 
organised cross-roads of truth, which are occupied only at 
rare intervals by children of men, and from which nothing is 
either too far or too near to be seen in due perspective. 
Patientest observation, exactest mathematics, shrewdest 
discrimination, humanest feeling flourished in him on the 
largest scale, with no apparent detriment to one another. 
He was, in fact, a philosopher in the " great " sense, although 
he cared so much less than most philosophers care for abstrac- 
tions of the " thin " order. For him the abstract lived in the 
concrete, and the hidden motive of all he did was to bring 
what he called the daylight view of this world into even 
greater evidence, that daylight view being this, that the whole 
universe in its different spans and wave-lengths, exclusions 
and envelopments, is everywhere alive and conscious. It has 
taken fifty years for his greatest book, Zend-Avesta, to 
pass into a second edition (1901). "One swallow," he cheer- 



THE EARTH-SOUL 281 

fully writes, "does not make a summer. But the first swallow 
would not come unless the summer were coming ; and for me 
that summer means my daylight view some time prevailing." 
The original sin, according to Fechner, of both our popular 

id our scientific thinking, is our inveterate habit of regarding 

ie spiritual, not as the rule, but as an exception in the midst 
Nature. Instead of believing our life to be fed at the 
breasts of the greater life, our individuality to be sustained 
by the greater individuality, which must necessarily have 
more consciousness and more independence than all that it 
brings forth, we treat whatever lies outside of our life as so 

tuch slag and ashes of life only ; or, if we believe in a Divine 
Jpirit, we fancy him on the one side as bodiless and Nature as 

>ulless on the other. What comfort, or peace, he asks, can 
come from such a doctrine ? The flowers wither at its breath, 
the stars turn into stone ; our own body grows unworthy of 
our spirit and sinks to a tenement for carnal senses only. The 
book of nature turns into a volume on mechanics, in which 
whatever lives is treated as a sort of anomaly ; a great chasm 
of separation yawns between us and whatever is higher than 
ourselves ; and God becomes a thin nest of abstractions. 

Fechner's great instrument for vivifying the daylight view 
is analogy ; not a rationalistic argument is to be found in 
all his many pages only reasonings like those which men 
continually use in practical life. For example : My house is 
built by someone ; the world too is built by someone. The 
world is greater than my house ; it must be a greater someone 
who built the world. My body moves by the influence of my 
feeling and will; the sun, moon, sea and wind, being them- 
selves more powerful, move by the influence of some more 
powerful feeling and will. I live now, and change from one 
day to another ; I shall live hereafter and change still more; etc. 
Bain defines genius as the power of seeing analogies. The 
number that Fechner could perceive was prodigious ; but he 
insisted on the differences as well. Neglect to make allowance 
for these, he said, is the common fallacy in analogical reasoning. 



282 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Most of us, for example, reasoning justly that since all the 
minds we know are connected with bodies, therefore God's 
mind should be connected with a body, proceed to suppose 
that that body must be an animal body over again, and so 
paint an altogether human picture of God. But all that the 
analogy comports is a body the particular features of our 
body are adaptations to a habitat so different from God's 
that, if God have a physical body at all, it must be utterly 
different from ours in structure. Throughout his writings 
Fechner makes difference and analogy walk abreast, and by 
his extraordinary sense for both things converts what would 
ordinarily pass for objections to his conclusions into factors of 
their support. 

The vaster orders of mind go with the vaster orders of 
body. The entire earth on which we live must have, accord- 
ing to Fechner, its own collective consciousness. So must 
each sun, moon, and planet ; so must our solar system have 
its own wider consciousness, in which the consciousness of our 
earth plays one part. So has the entire starry system as such 
its consciousness ; and if that starry system be not the sum 
of all that is, materially considered, then that whole system, 
along with whatever else may be, is the body of that absolutely 
totalised consciousness of the universe to which men give the 
name of God. 

Speculatively, Fechner is thus a monist in his theology ; 
but there is room in his universe for every grade of spiritual 
being between man and the final all-inclusive God. In 
suggesting the positive content of all this super-humanity, 
however, he hardly lets his imagination fly beyond simple 
spirits of the planetary order. The earth-soul he passionately 
believes in ; he treats the earth as our special human guardian 
angel ; we can pray to the earth as men pray to their saints ; 
and I think that in his system, as in so many of the actual 
historic theologies, the supreme God only marks a sort of 
limit of enclosure of the world of the divine. He is left thin 
and abstract in his majesty, men preferring to carry on their 




THE EARTH-SOUL 283 

personal transactions with the many less remote and abstract 
messengers and mediators whom the divine order provides. 

I shall ask later whether the abstractly monistic turn which 
Fechner's speculations took was necessitated by logic. I 
believe it was not required. Meanwhile, let me proceed a 
little farther into the detail of his thought. Inevitably one does 
him miserable injustice by summarising and abridging him. 
r although the type of reasoning he employs is almost 
ildlike for simplicity, and his bare conclusions can be written 
n a single page, the power of the man is due altogether to the 
profuseness of his concrete imagination ; to the multitude of 
the points which he considers successively ; to the cumulative 
effect of his learning, of his ingenuity in detail, and of his 
thoroughness ; to his admirably homely style ; to the sincerity 
with which his pages glow ; and, finally, to the impression he 
gives of a man who doesn't live at second-hand, but who sees, 
who in fact speaks, as a prophet, and is wholly unlike one 
of the common herd of scientific and philosophic scribes. 

Abstractly set down, his most important conclusion for my 
purpose in the present article is that the constitution of the 
world is the same throughout. In ourselves, visual conscious- 
ness goes with our eyes, tactile consciousness with our skin. But 
although neither skin nor eye knows aught of the sensations 
of the other, they come together and figure in some sort of 
relation and combination in the more inclusive consciousness 
which each of us names his self. Quite similarly, then, says 
Fechner, we must suppose that my consciousness of myself 
and yours of yourself, although in their immediacy they 
keep entirely separate and know nothing of each other, are 
yet known and used together in a higher consciousness, that 
of the human race, say, into which they enter as constituent 
parts. Similarly the human and the animal kingdom at large 
are members of a collective consciousness of still higher grade. 
This combines with the consciousness of the vegetable king- 
dom, in the Soul of the Earth, which in turn contributes its 
share of experience to that of the whole solar system ; and so 



284 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

on from synthesis to synthesis, and from height to height, till 
an absolutely universal consciousness is reached. 

A vast analogical series, of which the basis consists of facts 
directly observable in ourselves. 

The supposition of an earth-consciousness meets a strong 
instinctive prejudice which Fechner ingeniously tries to over- 
come. Man is the highest consciousness upon the earth, we 
think the earth itself being in all ways his inferior. How 
should its consciousness, if it have one, be superior to his? 

What are the marks of superiority which we are tempted 
to use here ? If we look more carefully into them, Fechner 
points out that the earth possesses each and all of them 
more perfectly than we. He considers in detail the points 
of difference between us, and shows them all to make for 
the earth's higher rank. I will touch on only a few of these 
points. 

One of them, of course, is independence of other external 
beings. External to the earth are only the other heavenly 
bodies. All the things on which we externally depend for 
life air, water, plant- and animal-food, fellow-men, etc. are 
included in her as constituent parts. She is self-sufficing in 
a million respects in which we are not so. We depend on 
her for almost everything, she on us for but a small portion 
of her history. She swings us in her orbit from winter to 
summer, and revolves us from day into night and from night 
into day. 

Complexity in unity is another sign of superiority. The 
total earth's complexity far exceeds that of any organism, 
for she includes all our organisms in herself, along with an 
infinite number of things that our organisms fail to include. 
Yet how simple and massive are the phases of her own 
proper life 1 As the total bearing of any animal is sedate and 
tranquil compared with the agitation of its blood corpuscles, 
so is the earth a sedate and tranquil being compared with 
the animals whom she supports. 

To develop from within, instead of being fashioned from 



THE EARTH-SOUL 285 

without, is also counted as superior in men's eyes. An egg 
is a higher style of being than a piece of clay which an 
external modeller makes into the image of a bird. Well, the 
earth's history develops from within. It is like that of a 
wonderful egg which the sun's heat, like that of a mother 
hen, has stimulated to its cycles of evolutionary change. 

Individuality of type, and difference from other beings of 
its type, is another mark of rank. The earth differs from 
every other planet, and the class of planetary beings is 
extraordinarily distinct. 

Long ago the earth was called an animal, but a planet 
a higher class of being than either man or animal ; not 
[y quantitatively greater, like a vaster and more awkward 
hale or elephant, but a being whose enormous size requires 
an altogether different plan of life. Our animal organisation 
comes from our inferiority. Our need of moving to and 
fro, of stretching our limbs and bending our bodies, shows 
only our defect. What are our legs but crutches, by means 
of which, with restless efforts, we go hunting after the things 
we have not inside of ourselves ? But the earth is no such 
cripple ; why should she, who already possesses within herself 
the things we so painfully pursue, have limbs analogous to 
ours? Shall she mimic a small part of herself? What need 
has she of arms, with nothing to reach for ; of a neck, with 
no head to carry ; of eyes or nose, when she finds her way 
through space without either, and has the millions of eyes 
of all her animals to guide their movements on her surface, 
and all their noses to smell the flowers that grow ? For, as 
we are ourselves a part of the earth, so our organs are her 
organs. She is, as it were, eye and ear over her whole extent, 
seeing and hearing at once all that we see and hear in separa- 
tion. She brings forth living beings of countless kinds upon 
her surface, and their multitudinous conscious relations with 
each other she takes up into her higher and more general 
conscious life. 

Most of us, considering the theory that the whole terres- 



286 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

trial mass is animated as our bodies are, make the mistake 
of working the analogy too literally, and allowing for no 
differences. If the earth be a sentient organism, we say, 
where are its brain and nerves ? What corresponds to its 
heart and lungs ? In other words, we expect functions which 
she already performs through us, to be performed outside 
of us again, and in just the same way. But we see perfectly 
well how the earth performs some of these functions in a way 
unlike our way. If you speak of circulation, what need has 
she of a heart, when the sun keeps all the showers that fall 
upon her, and all the springs and brooks and rivers that 
irrigate her, going? What need has she of internal lungs, 
when her whole sensitive surface is in living commerce with 
the atmosphere that clings to it? 

The organ that gives us most trouble is the brain. All 
the consciousness we directly know seems tied to brains. 
Can there be consciousness, we ask, where there is no brain ? 
But our brain, which primarily serves to correlate our muscular 
reactions with the external objects on which we depend, 
performs a function which the earth performs in an entirely 
different way. She has no proper muscles or limbs of her 
own, and the only objects external to her are the other stars. 
To these her whole mass reacts by most exquisite alterations 
in its total gait, and by still more exquisite vibratory responses 
in its substance. Her ocean reflects the lights of heaven as 
in a mighty mirror, her atmosphere refracts them like a 
monstrous lens, the clouds and snowfields combine them into 
white, the woods and flowers disperse them into colours. 
Polarisation, interference, absorption, awaken sensibilities in 
matter of which our senses are too coarse to take any note. 

For these cosmic relations of hers, then, she no more needs 
a special brain than she needs eyes or ears. Our brains do 
indeed unify and correlate innumerable functions. Our eyes 
know nothing of sound, our ears nothing of light ; but, having 
brains, we can feel sound and light together, and compare 
them. We account for this by the fibres which in the brain 



THE EARTH-SOUL 287 

connect the optical with the acoustic centre ; but just how 
such fibres bring the sensations as well as the centres together 
we fail to see. But if fibres are what is needed to do that 
trick, has not the earth pathways enough by which you and 
I are physically continuous, to do for our two minds what the 
brain fibres do for the sounds and sights in a single mind ? 
Cannot the earth-mind know the contents of our two minds 
together ? Must every higher means of unification between 
things be also a brain-fibre, and go by that name ? 

Fechner's imagination, insisting on the differences as well 
as on the resemblances, thus tries to make our picture of the 
whole earth's life more concrete. He revels in the thought of 
its perfections. To carry her precious freight through the 
hours and seasons, what form could be more excellent than 
hers being as it is horse, wheels, and wagon all in one ? Think 
of her beauty a shining ball, sky-blue and sunlit over one 
half, the other bathed in starry night, reflecting the heavens 
from all her waters, myriads of lights and shadows in her 
mountains' folds and valleys' windings, she would be a 
spectacle of rainbow glory could one only see her from afar 
as we see parts of her from her own mountain-tops. Every 
quality of landscape that has a name would then be visible at 
once in her all that is delicate or graceful, all that is quiet 
or wild, or romantic, or desolate, or cheerful, or luxuriant, or 
fresh. That landscape is her face a peopled landscape, too, 
for men's eyes would appear in it like diamonds among the 
dewdrops. Green would be the dominant colour, but the 
blue atmosphere and the clouds would enshroud her as a veil 
enshrouds a bride a veil the vapoury transparent folds of 
which the earth, through her ministers the winds, never tires 
of laying and folding about herself anew. 

Every element has its own living denizens ; can the celestial 
ocean of aether whose waves are light, in which the earth 
herself floats, not have hers, higher by as much as their ele- 
ment is higher, swimming without fins, flying without wings, 
moving, immense and tranquil, as by a half-spiritual force 



288 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

through the half- spiritual sea which they inhabit, rejoicing in 
the exchange of luminous influence with one another, following 
the slightest pull of one another's attraction, and harbouring, 
each of them, an inexhaustible inward wealth ? 

Men have always made fables about angels, dwelling in 
the light, needing no earthly food or drink, messengers 
between ourselves and God. Here are actually existent 
beings, dwelling in the light and moving through the sky, 
needing neither food nor drink, intermediaries between God 
and us, obeying his commands. So, if the heavens really are 
the home of angels, the heavenly bodies must be those very 
angels, for other creatures there are none. Yes ! the earth is 
our great common guardian angel, who watches over all our 
interests combined. 

In a striking page Fechner relates one of his moments of 
direct vision of this truth. 

" On a certain spring morning I went out to walk. The 
fields were green, the birds sang, the dew glistened, the smoke 
was rising, here and there a man appeared ; a light as of 
transfiguration lay on all things. It was only a little bit 
of the earth ; it was only one moment of her existence ; and 
yet, as my look embraced her more and more, it seemed to 
me not only so beautiful an idea, but so true and clear a 
fact, that she is an angel, an angel so rich and fresh and 
flower-like, and yet going her round in the skies so firmly 
and so at one with herself, turning her whole living face to 
heaven, and carrying me along with her into that heaven, 
that I asked myself how the opinions of men could ever 
have so spun themselves away from life so far as to deem 
the earth only a dry clod, and to seek for angels above it 
or about it in the emptiness of the sky, only to find them 
nowhere. But such an experience as this passes for fantastic. 
The earth is a sphere, and what more she may be one can 
find in mineralogical cabinets." 1 

Where there is no vision the people perish. Few pro- 

1 Fechner, Vb. d. Seelenfrage, 186l, p. 170. 




THE EARTH-SOUL 289 

fessorial philosophers have any vision. Fechner had vision, 
and that is why one can read him over and over again, and 
each time bring away a fresh sense of reality. 

His earliest book was a vision of what the inner life of 
ts may be like. He called it Nanna. In the develop- 
ment of animals the nervous system is the central fact. 

nts develop centrifugally, spread their organs abroad. 

r that reason people suppose that they can have no con- 
iousness, for they lack the unity which the central nervous 
system provides. But the plant's consciousness may be of 
another type, connected with other structures. Violins and 
pianos give out sounds because they have strings. Does it 
follow that nothing but strings can give out sounds ? How, 
then, about flutes and organ-pipes ? Of course their sounds 
are of a different quality, and so may the consciousness of 
plants be of a quality correlated exclusively with the kind 
of organisation that they possess. Nutrition, respiration, pro- 
pagation take place in them without nerves. In us these 
functions are conscious only in unusual states ; normally 
their consciousness is eclipsed by that which goes with the 
brain. No such eclipse occurs in plants, and their lower 
consciousness may therefore be all the more lively. With 
nothing to do but to drink the light and air with their 
leaves, to let their cells proliferate, to feel their rootlets draw 
the sap, is it conceivable that they should not consciously 
suffer if water, light, and air were suddenly withdrawn ; or 
that when the flowering and fertilisation which are the 
culmination of their life take place, they should not feel 
their own existence more intensely and enjoy something like 
what we call pleasure in ourselves ? Does the water-lily, 
rocking in her triple bath of water, air, and light, relish in 
no wise her own beauty ? When the plant in our own room 
turns to the light, closes her blossoms in the dark, responds 
to our watering or pruning by increase of size or change of 
shape and bloom, who has the right to say she does not feel, 
or that she plays a purely passive part ? Truly plants can 
VOL. VII. No. 2. 19 



290 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

foresee nothing, neither the scythe of the mower nor the hand 
extended to pluck their flowers. They can neither run away 
nor cry out. But this only proves how different their modes 
of feeling life must be from those of animals that live by 
eyes and ears and locomotive organs ; it does not prove that 
they have no mode of feeling life at all. 

How scanty and scattered would sensation be on our 
globe, if the conscious life of plants were blotted from ex- 
istence ! Solitary would consciousness move through the 
woods in the shape of some deer or other quadruped, or fly 
about the flowers in that of some insect. But can we really 
suppose that the nature through which God's breath blows 
is such a barren wilderness as this? 

I have probably by this time said enough to acquaint 
those readers who have never seen these metaphysical writings 
of Fechner, with their more general characteristics, and I 
hope that many may now feel like reading them in the 
original. The special thought of Fechner's with which in 
this place I have most practical concern is his belief that the 
more inclusive forms of consciousness are in part constituted 
by the more limited forms. Not that they are the mere sum 
of the more limited forms. As our mind is not the bare 
sum of our sights plus our sounds plus our pains, but in 
adding these terms together also finds relations among them 
and weaves them into schemes and forms and objects, of 
which no one in its separate estate knows anything, so the 
earth -soul traces relations between the contents of my mind 
and the contents of yours of which neither of our separate 
minds is conscious. It has schemes, forms, and objects pro- 
portionate to its wider field, which our mental fields are far 
too narrow to cognise. By ourselves we are simply out of 
relation with each other ; in it we are both of us there, and 
" different " from each other, which is a positive relation. 
What we are without knowing, it knows that we are. We 
are closed against the world, but that world is not closed 
against us. It is as if the total universe of inner life had 



THE EARTH-SOUL 291 

a sort of grain or direction, a sort of valvular structure 
permitting knowledge to flow in one way only, so that the 
wider might always have the narrower under observation, 
but never the narrower the wider. 

Fechner's great analogy here is the relation of the senses to 
our individual minds. When our eyes are open their sensa- 
tions enter into our general mental life, which grows incessantly 
by the addition of what they see. Close the eyes, however, 
and the visual additions stop ; nothing but thoughts and 
memories of the past visual experiences remain in combina- 
tion, of course, with the enormous stock of other thoughts and 
memories, and with the data of the remaining senses not yet 
closed. Our eye-sensations of themselves know nothing of 
this enormous life into which they fall. Fechner thinks, as 
any common man would think, that they are taken into it 
directly when they occur, and form part of it just as they 
are. They don't stay outside and get represented inside by 
their copies. It is only the memories and concepts of them 
that are copies ; the sensations and percepts are just taken in 
or walled out in their own proper persons according as the 
eyes are open or shut. 

Fechner likens our individual persons on the earth unto 
so many sense-organs of the earth's soul. We add to its 
perceptive life so long as our own life lasts. It absorbs our 
perceptions, just as they occur, into its larger sphere of know- 
ledge, and combines them with the other data there. When 
one of us dies, it is as if an eye of the world were closed, for 
all perceptive contributions from that particular quarter cease. 
But the memories and conceptual relations that have spun 
themselves round the perceptions of that person remain in the 
larger earth-life as distinct as ever, and form new relations and 
grow and develop throughout all the future, in the same way 
in which our own distinct objects of thought, once stored in 
memory, form new relations and develop throughout our whole 
finite life. This is Fechner's theory of immortality, first 
published in the little Buchkin des Lebens nach dem Tode 



292 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

in 1836, and re-edited in greatly improved shape in the last 
volume of his Zend-Avesta. 

We rise upon the earth as wavelets rise upon the sea. We 
grow from her soil as leaves grow from a tree. The wavelets 
catch the sunbeams separately, the leaves stir when the branches 
do not move. They realise their own events apart, just as in 
our own consciousness of anything emphatic the background 
fades from observation. Yet the event works back upon the 
background, as the waves work upon other waves, or as the 
leafs movements work upon the sap inside the branch. The 
whole sea and the whole tree are registers of what has happened, 
and are different from the wave's and leafs action having 
occurred. A grafted twig may modify its scion to the roots : 
so our outlived private experiences, impressed on the whole 
earth-mind as memories, lead the immortal life of ideas there, 
form parts of the great system, as distinguished as we by our- 
selves were distinct, realising themselves no longer isolatedly, 
but along with one another, entering then into new combina- 
tions, and being affected by the perceptive experiences of the 
living who survive us, and affecting the living in their turn, 
although they are so seldom recognised by living men as 
doing so. 

If you imagine that this entrance into a common future life 
of higher type means merging and loss of distinct personality, 
Fechner asks you whether a visual sensation of our own exists 
in any sense less for itself or less distinctly, when it enters into 
our higher relational consciousness and is there distinguished 
and defined ? 

Thus is the universe alive, according to this philosopher ! 
I think you will admit that he makes it more thickly alive 
than do the other philosophers who, following rationalistic 
methods solely, gain the same results, but only in the thinnest 
outlines. Both Fechner and Professor Royce, for example, 
believe ultimately in one all-inclusive mind. Both believe that 
we, just as we stand here, are constituent parts of that mind. 
No other content has it than us, with all the other creatures 



likP 



THE EARTH-SOUL 293 



like or unlike us. Our caches, collected into one, are sub- 
stantively identical with that all, though the all is perfect while 
no each is perfect, so that we have to admit that new qualities 
accrue from the collective form, which is thus superior to the 
distributive. Having reached this result, Royce (though his 
treatment of the subject on its moral side seems to me 
infinitely richer and thicker than that of any other con- 
temporary idealistic philosopher) leaves us very much to our 
own devices. Fechner, on the contrary, tries to trace the 
superiorities due to the more collective form in as much 
detail as he can. He marks the various intermediary stages 
and halting-places of collectivity as we are to our separate 
senses, so is the earth to us, so is the solar system to the earth, 
etc. ; and if, in order to escape an infinitely long summation, 
he posits an absolute God as the all-container and leaves him 
about as indefinite in feature as the idealists leave their 
absolute, he yet provides us with a very definite gate of 
approach to him in the shape of the earth-soul, through 
which in the nature of things we must first make connection 
with all the more enveloping superhuman realms, and with 
which our more immediate religious commerce has at any rate 
to be carried on. 

Ordinary transcendentalism leaves everything intermediary 
out. It recognises only the extremes, as if after the first 
rude face of the phenomenal world in all its particularity 
nothing but the supreme in all its perfection could be found. 
First, you and I, just as we are in our places ; and the moment 
we get below that surface, the unutterable Absolute itself! 
Doesn't this show a singularly indigent imagination? Isn't 
this brave universe made on a richer pattern, with room in it 
for a long hierarchy of beings ? Materialistic science makes 
it infinitely richer in terms, with its molecules and aether, and 
electrons, and what not. Absolute idealism, thinking of reality 
only under intellectual forms, knows not what to do with 
bodies of any grade, and can make no use of any psycho- 
physical analogy or correspondence. The resultant thinness 



294 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

is startling when compared with the thickness and articulation 
of such a universe as Fechner paints. May not satisfaction 
with the rationalistic absolute as the Alpha and Omega, and 
treatment of it in all its abstraction as an adequate religious 
object, argue a certain native indigence of mind ? Things 
reveal themselves soonest to those who passionately want them. 
Need sharpens wit. To a mind content with little, the much 
in the universe may always remain hid. 

To be candid, one of my reasons for printing this article 
about Fechner has been to make the thinness of our current 
transcendentalism appear more evident by an effect of contrast. 
Scholasticism ran thick ; Hegel himself ran thick ; but English 
and American transcendentalism run thin. If philosophy is 
more a matter of passionate vision than of logic and I believe 
it is, logic only finding reasons for the vision afterwards must 
not such thinness come, either from the vision being defective 
in the disciples, or from their passion, matched with Fechner's 
or with Hegel's own passion, being as moonlight unto sunlight 
or as water unto wine ? 

WILLIAM JAMES. 



'SYCHOTHERAPEUTICS AND RELIGION. 
DR HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL, 

New York. 

I. WERE the complete history of medical science written, it 
would without doubt appear that the treatment of disease 
through what seem to be mental influences has prevailed in one 
form or another ever since man began to realise that certain 
illnesses are curable. Yet psychotherapeutics as a science may 
be said to have had its origin in the famous investigations as 
to the nature of hypnotism undertaken at Nancy under the 
leadership of Bernheim, and coincidently by Charcot in Paris, 
only some twenty-five years ago. These investigations began 
with the careful observation of certain modes of therapeutic 
practice jvhich were being used in an unscientific manner at 
that time under such names as animal magnetism, mesmerism, 
etc., and which we now see had been thus employed from time 
immemorial by those who practised the so-called occult arts, 
magic and necromancy. 

But attention to these phenomena has also brought into 
existence a small host of cults, e.g. Mental Healing, Mind 
Cure, Faith Cure, Metaphysical Healing, Christian Science, etc., 
whose leaders make use in a more or less bungling way of the 
methods of the more scientific psychotherapeutics, but explain 
the resultant cures in terms of doctrines of very dubious nature. 

In a large proportion of cases at least, the first crude 
therapeutics of the uncivilised man probably had its origin 
among those of the priestly class, which, in the nature of the 



295 



296 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

case, included all men of special wisdom ; and so far as crude 
psychotherapeutics was employed in the earlier days, it must 
almost certainly have been practised under the same auspices, 
and in connection with religious doctrinal teaching. This 
being the case, it is not at all surprising to find a tendency 
to couple religious or semi-religious teaching with our newer 
psychotherapeutic practice. All the cults above referred to 
claim to teach what may be broadly described as religious 
doctrines in conjunction with their mental healing ; and as the 
forms of doctrine preached have proved acceptable, these cults 
have gained strength apart from, and even in the antagonism 
to, the established Churches, and notwithstanding opposition 
from the scientifically trained men in the medical profession. 

The growth of these cults, however, has in general been 
very limited, Christian Science having alone been markedly 
successful ; and this evidently because in Mrs Eddy it has a 
prophetess who has delivered a message, and who has written 
what is to her followers a sacred book. 

Christian Science deals with psychotherapeutics, and it is 
also announced as a new religion, or a new interpretation of 
the religious movement instituted by Christ. Its therapeutics 
is opposed by men of training because of the absurdity of its 
modes of explanation of the facts with which it deals ; because 
of its unscientific methods of procedure ; and because of the 
unfounded claims it makes as to the cure of radical organic 
diseases, which claims, indeed, it is bound in consistency to 
make if the doctrines it teaches are well based. Its religious 
teachings might naturally be expected to arouse some hostile 
feeling among the established Churches in the fact that it 
claims to present a new and truer interpretation of the 
Scriptures, and this hostility has not been reduced by the 
recognition that Christian Science is gaining not a few con- 
verts from the members of the long-established Churches, and 
that it seems to be moving to new triumphs where these latter 
have failed to advance. 

But what we may perhaps call the worldly success of 



PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS 297 

Christian Science has led the churchman to note the fact 
that its advance seems bound up with the cure of disease, 
with which his church concerns itself only very indirectly. 
He has seen for years the growth among the people of a habit 
of turning to their medical advisers for counsel which but a 
generation ago would have been asked from the priest : he 
now sees the sudden growth of a new church, the leaders of 
which claim to take the place of both medical adviser and 
priest. Naturally, then, he asks whether his church's hold 
upon the people cannot be retained if he add to his priestly 
function that of the medical adviser, and naturally we find 
suddenly appearing within certain of the churches a new 
school which holds that, if a church is to fulfil its function 
completely, it must add to its establishment a psychothera- 
peutic clinic such as is called for by Dr Worcester and Dr 
MacComb of Emmanuel Church in Boston, where this move- 
ment is at present most thoroughly organised. If we may 
judge from the interest the work of this Boston church has 
aroused, it seems likely that pressure will be brought to bear 
upon a large body of the clergy to establish similar clinics in 
connection with their churches. It may be well worth while, 
therefore, to make a comparison between the characteristics of 
Christian Science and those of the Emmanuel Movement as it 
has been lately described in the " official " volume called 
Religion and Medicine. 

II. (1) The Christian Scientist maintains that religion and 
therapeutics are inseparably connected ; and (2) in defence 
of this position points to the cures resulting from treatment 
by their leaders, claiming that they can do all that the trained 
physician can do, and are able to effect cures which the physician 
cannot accomplish ; beyond this, (3) its founder, Mrs Eddy, 
attempts to establish these claims by a special interpretation 
of the Scriptures, building upon that as a foundation a meta- 
physical structure which her disciples present as a warrant for 
their practice. Let us consider these points in reverse order. 



298 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Mrs Eddy's interpretation of the Scriptures is largely 
based upon the assumption of the verbal inspiration of the 
original texts and the accuracy of our English translation, and 
it is true, as the Emmanuel workers say, that " she interprets 
Scripture in a way that excites the scholar's disgust." For 
this, however, she should not be too sharply criticised ; for her 
outlook upon life has been exceedingly limited, and in this 
procedure she has merely followed in the footsteps of the 
worthies of the Church, with whose methods she must have 
been more or less familiar. 

The metaphysical doctrines promulgated by her, and 
treated as inspired by her followers, surely cannot be treated 
seriously when one of her most reverent disciples, who writes 
a learned apologetic of over 700 pages, 1 acknowledges that 
" the first reading of her chief work, Science and Health, with 
a Key to the Scriptures, leaves the impression, in spite of 
much that is strikingly beautiful and true, that there is a 
prevailing tone of incoherence, contradiction, illogicality and 
arbitrary, dictatorial assertion, with no regard for evident fact 
either in the realm of objective nature or history." 

One cannot but note how definitely her poorly systematised 
metaphysical doctrine leads in the direction of mysticism, 
which indeed seems to have a fascination for the leaders of the 
Emmanuel Movement themselves, if we may judge by their 
assumptions as to the nature and function of the " unconscious 
mind," of which we speak below. In fact, it appears that 
Christian Science and all kindred cults attract many to their 
shrines just because they there gain the satisfactions which 
mysticism in all its forms brings : the relief from effort to 
think clearly ; the delight yielded by the removal of all of the 
strain attending the appreciation of foresight and responsibility, 
which must accompany any belief in the individual's absorption 
within the being of the universal. 

It is all too easy, however, to consider this general move- 

1 The Interpretation of Life, in which is shown the relation of Modern 
Culture and Christian Science : by C. C. Mars. 



PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS 299 

ment from a coldly critical standpoint ; we are likely to gain 
a more satisfactory insight if we take a more sympathetic view. 
We must face the fact that great numbers of men and women, 
rhose intelligence we do not think of questioning when we 
ieet them in the ordinary walks of life, nevertheless follow the 
things of Christian Science and allied cults which seem to 
jmand logical blindness and hopeless unintelligence. There 
must be some latent reason why they are willing to lay aside 
the safeguards of rational life in favour of the non-rational or 
even the irrational, and I take it that the mystic attraction 
just referred to would in most cases fail of efficacy were it not 
that those who thus slip from the firm ground of reason believe 
that physical sufferings of their own, or of their close friends, 
have been relieved in connection with the acceptance of these 
unreasoned doctrines, as they could not have been in any other 
manner ; and this brings us to the consideration of the second 
point referred to above. 

III. All physicians of broad practice and keen observation 
realise that certain pains may be alleviated or cured, and that 
certain morbid conditions may be made to disappear, provided 
a change in the mental state of the patient can be brought 
about. To what processes this is due they do not often stop 
to inquire ; their business is to cure, and when they find an 
effective instrument at hand they are likely to use it without 
etiological inquiry. 

The studies of hypnotism above referred to, and kindred 
inquiries, especially in relation to hysteria, have shown that if 
we can persuade a person that a pain of which he complains 
has disappeared, a change for the better in his physical con- 
dition will often follow. It does not require special learning 
to build up a psychotherapeutic practice based upon the 
observation of such cases ; and the Christian Science healers, 
narrowly educated and of narrow experience, have done just 
this thing, resting upon the theory that the mental influence 
of the healer is the effective curative agent. It is easy to see 



300 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

how a development of this theory would lead to the assumption 
that all kinds of diseases may be curable by mental influences 
emanating from a healer, this leading to the practice of the 
so-called " absent -treatment," with all its follies and dangers. 

To the claims thus made the educated and experienced 
physician naturally enters a vigorous demurrer ; he knows all 
too well the processes of physical decay, which no human skill 
can do more than delay. And the leaders of the Emmanuel 
Movement here take issue with Christian Science ; for they hold 
that psychotherapeutics can only be effective in the treatment 
of functional nervous diseases ; and they argue that specially 
trained physicians should be called into consultation to 
determine whether cases of nervous trouble presented to them 
for treatment are functional and not organic. We may over- 
look the question whether the distinction between functional 
and organic disease is one that is sufficiently fundamental to 
warrant the adoption of a mode of therapeutic treatment which 
may apply to the functional class while not applying to the 
organic ; but we cannot overlook the fact that the leaders of 
the Emmanuel Movement, whose special training has been to 
prepare them for other work, are willing and anxious to under- 
take the cure of disease, for which the skilled physician has 
specially prepared himself, and to which he has perhaps devoted 
a lifetime of serious effort. The effective physician must be 
a man of keen insight, sound judgment, un warped by emotion- 
alism, and wise ; yes, at times even " worldly wise." It cannot 
be maintained that the clergy as a rule are recruited from 
those in whom these characteristics are markedly displayed, 
nor that their training and occupation tend to emphasise these 
qualities. We cannot but group together the Christian 
Science healer and the Emmanuel Movement leader as men 
who lightly take upon themselves work which the most serious 
experts in medicine study with the deepest care and handle 
with the greatest caution. 

Such an attitude can only be condoned if we grant that 
these functional nervous diseases can be treated more success- 



PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS 301 

fully under religious influences than in the non-religious 
atmosphere of the scientific study of disease ; and this claim 
is quite clearly made by the advocates of the methods here 
described. This brings us to the question whether it is true 
that religion and therapeutics are inseparably connected. 

IV. It would probably be conceded that religion and 
therapeutics are necessarily related if it were generally believed 
that certain diseases can be cured under religious influences 
that cannot be cured in any other way. But evidence favour- 
able to this belief is difficult to reach. The sceptical physician 
could probably present cases of the type usually treated by 
psychotherapeutic methods which he has cured, although the 
religious healer has failed to do so ; but it would evidently be 
absurd to argue from this that irreUgion and therapeutics are 
necessarily connected. So without doubt cases may be cited 
where disease has been alleviated by the Christian Science 
and kindred treatments which had not been benefited by 
many doctors ; but this of course does not prove that the 
same results might not have been gained without religious 
influences had the proper physicians been consulted. It is 
easy to create an impression favourable to a given view by 
persistent reiteration of claims such as is made by the religious 
healers ; but we are learning that if such claims are to be 
accepted they must be substantiated by scientifically presented 
evidence, and this we here find to be lacking. The religious 
healers as a class are unfamiliar with and averse to the labour 
of collecting accurate statistics : we have therefore no proper 
means of comparison between the results obtained by the 
skilled physician who guards his statements by careful calcula- 
tions, and the religious healer who takes no such precaution. 
There is thus a presumption against the claim of the latter, 
which becomes stronger when we consider that he habitually 
makes use of the very modes of suggestive treatment that are 
employed by the skilled neurologist. The religious healer will 
claim that he uses the " power of prayer " as the neurologist 



302 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

does not ; but if, as we shall presently show, the efficacy of 
prayer in this connection is due to its power of suggestion, 
the most the religious healer can claim is that he employs a 
more powerful suggestive method than that used by physicians : 
a claim which it would be difficult to substantiate. 

Suggestion is ineffective unless the patient is in a receptive 
attitude of mind, and therefore trust in the one who suggests 
a willingness and anxiety to receive command is essential 
to the efficacy of the psychotherapeutic treatment. It is 
probably true that some patients are less ready to put their 
trust in a physician, who is to them merely a man who claims 
wisdom, than in a religious teacher, who appears as the 
representative of a loving and powerful God. Where, then, 
we find trust more readily yielded to the religious teacher than 
to the doctor, we should be led to urge the importance of 
the function of the religious leader as an interpreter to the 
physician, but should surely not find in it an indication that 
the religious leader may take the physician's role. 

It is not at all unlikely that the religious healer at times 
brings about in his patient something closely allied to a real 
religious conversion. In religious conversions of a profound type 
we see the replacement of one morbid individuality by a new and 
more moral one, and the shifting of point of view so that ideas 
and aims which were formerly persistent give place to others. 
Now the very ideas and aims that are thus displaced may have 
been correlated with morbid physical conditions, and in that 
case their displacement means the appearance of new physical 
conditions which may effect the disappearance of what is 
morbid. In cases where the medical doctor notes that his 
patient has not felt the influence of religion, and surmises that 
religious conversion may bring relief, it may appear wise for 
him to call the clergyman to his aid. We are thus led to hold 
that collaboration between the medical doctor and the religious 
leader is greatly to be desired, but are surely not warranted in 
suggesting the assumption by either of the role of the other in 
addition to his own. 






PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS 303 



Religion has to do with ethics, with conduct and motive, 
with the emphasis of the best impulses that are within us ; and 
with these things therapeutics cannot pretend to deal. 

Nor can it for a moment be conceded that religion is 
dependent for its persistence upon any physical benefit to be 
gained by the religious devotee. It is very doubtful whether 
many thoughtful Christians will accept the teaching of the 
Emmanuel Church leaders, when they perceive that it implies 
that Christ's healing of the sick was of the very essence of his 
message to humanity. 

V. Christian Scientists make little pretence of explaining 
their methods or practice in rational terms ; nor is it of im- 
portance to them to do so. Based as their system is upon a 
misconceived idealism, it merely proclaims the unreality of 
pain, disease, and error, and naturally demands no explanations 
of what it treats as non-existents. 1 

The intellectual follies to which these ill-digested meta- 
physical theories lead naturally produce a revolt in men of 
more logical bent ; and we find the Emmanuel leaders, who 
really care to explain their methods in rational terms, replacing 

1 The psychological basis of this crude metaphysical thesis seems to be 
found in the relative instability of pain, with which disease and error are 
con-elated. Pleasant experiences tend to persist, and this because they are 
the correlates of efficient neural activities. Painful experiences, on the other 
hand, tend to disappear from attention, and this because they are the correlates 
of inefficient neural activities which tend to cease : they may be persistent 
enough, as we all too well know ; that is, however, not because of their inner 
nature, but because of the persistence of external or internal stimuli, which 
force the activity which, but for the stimulation, would quickly disappear. It is 
without doubt the vague recognition of this instability of pain itself, as com- 
pared with the stability of pleasure itself, that leads to the assertion of the 
unrealness of pain. This psychological fact is then quite illogically transmuted 
into an unwarranted metaphysical principle which maintains the unreality of, 
the non-existence of, pains as such. If there is a sense in which this is 
true, it is also necessary to maintain in the same sense the unreality of pleasure 
as such ; but it never occurs to the defenders of these vague theories to 
maintain the unreality of pleasure as such ; rather do they treat pleasure as a 
reality to which we have a right in the nature of the constitution of the 
universe. 



304 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

them by conceptions that on their face seem much more 
reasonable. Their argument may be summarised as follows : l 

1. The mind has power over the body (p. 2). 

2. (a) There exists in each of us (p. 42) a " sub-conscious 
mind " which is " a normal part of our spiritual nature." 
(b) This sub-conscious mind is "purer, more sensitive to 
good and evil, than our conscious mind," and (c) " has more 
direct control of our physical processes than the conscious." 
(d) This powerful sub-conscious mind acts favourably upon 
the nerves as the result of suggestion and auto-suggestion. 

3. (a) " Faith simply as a psychical process or mental atti- 
tude ... has healing virtue " (p. 293). (b) The more deeply 
personality is involved in any given ailment, the more neces- 
sary is it that faith should have an object worthy of men's 
ethical dignity (p. 294), i.e. this faith should be directed toward 
God. (c) " The prayer of faith has an immense influence over 
the functions of organic life " (p. 312), and " when we pray 
earnestly and long for the moral and physical welfare of 
another, our soul not only acts on that one, but our prayer, 
rising in the mind of God, directs his will more powerfully and 
constantly to the soul for which we pray " (p. 316). Hence the 
value of the association of religion with psychotherapy. 

Let us consider these main conceptions in reverse order. 

VI. Faith "as a psychical process or mental attitude" 
implies a listening for and a willingness to obey a command or 
suggestion : and evidently prayer as a psychical process is 
closely allied with the mental attitude of faith. When one 
prays for a second person in that person's presence, the one 
who prays is clearly suggesting to the other, and enforcing 
in the other's mind the ideas suggested. When one prays 
for oneself he is doing the very same thing, but by what is 
called auto-suggestion. 

If one then says that " faith has healing virtue," and that 

1 Page numbers in brackets refer to Religion and Medicine as above 
mentioned. 



PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS 305 

prayer " has an immense influence over the functions of organic 
life," we may say that no more is claimed than that the 
attitude in which suggestion is effective, and the actual 
process of suggestion, are often followed by improvement in 
physical condition : a proposition which will be granted, and 
which evidently may be granted without any acceptance of 
the doubtful hypothesis above referred to, as to the manner 
in which the prayer of a human being affects the mind of 
God, and renders God's mind more effective in relation to the 
human soul prayed for. 

VII. We are thus carried forward to the second point 
made by the Emmanuel leaders, viz. that suggestion is 
effective especially, if not almost wholly, through what is 
called the sub-conscious mind. In this connection we may 
study briefly, (1) the nature of suggestion as a psychic process ; 
and (2) the hypothesis as to the existence and the nature of 
the "sub-conscious mind." 

1. Altogether too much mystery is attached by the psycho- 
therapists to the process of suggestion, which as a matter of 
fact we employ, and are subject to, in every moment of our 
active lives. One uses suggestion whenever he forces an 
idea into prominence in the mind of another; and what is 
recognised by the psychotherapist and his patient as suggestion 
differs from this everyday performance only in the clear 
intention of the one suggesting, and the recognition by the 
patient that the healer is attempting to dominate his thought. 

When we make our suggestions to a hypnotised patient 
we are bringing about changes in the patient's mental realm 
of the abnormal moment, which produce results in the mental 
situation of the non-hypnotic condition. 

In auto-suggestion the patient, having gained the con- 
ception of a set of ideas which it is desirable to emphasise, 
uses every effort to make the appearance of these ideas 
persistent ; and, as we have already seen, this auto-suggestion 
may be gained through the reiteration of an idea through 
VOL. VII. No. 2. 20 



306 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

prayer. It is to be noted also that the process of auto- 
suggestion from the psychological point of view is identical 
with the process of voluntary action or " willing." For it will 
probably be granted that the Emmanuel Church workers are 
warranted in describing auto-suggestion as a "self-imposed 
! narrowing of the field of consciousness to one idea, by holding 
a given thought in the mental focus to the exclusion of all 
other thoughts " (p. 93). Nor will any psychologist deny that 
in this they give us a fairly accurate description of the 
voluntary act ; for, as Professor Royce l puts it, " to will a 
given act is to think attentively of that act to the exclusion 
of the representation or imagining of any and all other acts." 
This being the case, it is easy to comprehend the close alliance 
between those who claim to cure by power of will and those 
who claim to cure by auto-suggestion. 

Now it is evident that this process of suggestion is not 
confined to the emphasis of any one type of ideas. The new 
ideas may be more or less normal than those replaced, or they 
may be more or less moral. There is no fundamental differ- 
ence between these forms of suggestion which lead to evil and 
the normal types of suggestion in use in everyday life. 

Nor is there any fundamental difference between these 
latter and the forms of suggestion employed by the mental 
healer, who, however, usually deals with markedly persistent 
morbid ideas which he wishes to displace. These persistent 
morbid ideas are of course correlated with morbid nerve 
situations. If we replace these ideas with others, we reduce 
the emphasis of the morbid ideas, and at the same time alter 
the correlated morbid nerve situation. If, then, by exaggera- 
tion of the everyday process of suggestion we bring into 
existence a new set of persistent ideas, we have at the same 
time eliminated the old and morbid persistent ideas, and co- 
incidently have changed the nerve situation, and may even 
have brought about the disappearance of the morbid nerve 
conditions with which the morbid ideas were correlated. 

1 Outlines of Psychology, p. 36.9. 






PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS 307 



It seems clear from these considerations that suggestion 
is not a process which is employed alone in psychotherapeutic 
practice. Nor can it be said to be a process which is essentially! 
correlated with the religious attitude of mind. 

2. Turning to the consideration of the hypothesis as to the 
existence and nature of the " sub-conscious mind," we note, 
what will be generally conceded, that when we experience a 
sharp sensation, a clear thought, a well-defined emotion, a 
voluntary choice, i.e. any clearly defined mental element (A) 
which is held in attention, there exists at the same moment 
a specially marked activity in some part (a) of the nerve 
system, usually assumed to be within the brain ; but it would 
never occur to anyone to hold that at the moment considered 
that nerve part (a) is the only part of the nerve system that 
is active ; what we really have in (a) is an emphasis of 
activity in a special part of the all-active nerve system, which 
is a highly complex system of minor systems of nerve parts. 
It is most natural, therefore, to assume that the mental element 
in attention (A) also does not stand alone, but that it is what 
it is because it is contrasted with a highly complex mental 
system which is really a broad system of minor systems of 
psychic elements, which taken in its totality and as inclusive 
of (A) we call consciousness. The parts of this psychic 
system which are apart from A and the rest of the field of 
attention, while not sufficiently emphatic to form part of this 
field of attention, are effective in forming a background 
against which the psychic elements within attention appear ; 
this background may therefore be well described as sub- 
attentive consciousness, and that there exists in each moment 
of an individual's waking life not only a field of attention 
but also a field of sub-attentive consciousness few psychologists 
of importance nowadays would question. It is this sub- 
attentive consciousness that is referred to by those who speak 
of " sub-consciousness." 

Much of the mystery usually felt in relation to this sub- 
attentive consciousness ("sub-consciousness") results from our 



308 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

overlooking the fact that it is most intricately systematised, 
just as the parts of the nerve system whose activities 
correspond with it are intricately systematised. It is funda- 
mentally of the same nature as attentive consciousness, and 
we should therefore not be surprised to discover that it is 
affected by elements which appear in the field of attention, 
nor surprised to find the field of attention affected by 
influences initiated within it. The suggestions made to 
patients in sleep and in trances ; the auto-suggestions made 
as one is falling asleep or just awaking, as recommended by 
our Emmanuel healers (p. 106), and by the psychotherapeutists 
in general, are cases where mental elements within the field 
of attention affect the sub-attentive consciousness (" sub-con- 
sciousness "). The cases where suggestions thus made change 
the tone of the mental life of which a man is aware, are 
cases where a changed sub-attentive consciousness (" sub-con- 
scious mind ") affects the man's field of attention. 

The mystery as to the nature of the sub-conscious mind 
being thus dispelled, we are prepared to ask certain questions 
in relation to the tenets of the Emmanuel workers. They 
tell us that this " sub-conscious mind " is a normal part of 
our spiritual nature. Here the word spiritual is doubtless 
intended to refer to something diverse from the field of 
attention in consciousness, but this involves an unwarranted 
assumption. What we mean by our spiritual life is that 
part of our experience of impulse and motive, realised 
or imagined, which yields to us the greatest satisfaction in 
retrospect, and which we, in these moments of reflection, wish 
might persist and recur in our future experience. But we 
have in this no warrant for the description of our spiritual 
being in animistic terms as existing within the body apart from 
both it and mind (p. 390), or even distinct from both body 
and soul (p. 379). 

The statement that the " sub-conscious mind " is " purer, 
more sensative to good and evil, than the conscious " is equally 
unwarranted, although it seems to have the support of so 



PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS 309 

eminent a psychologist as William James, who tells us : l 
" Starbuck seems to put his finger on the root of the matter 
when he says that to exercise the personal will is still to live 
in the region where the imperfect self is the most emphasised. 
Where, on the contrary, the sub-conscious forces take the lead, 
it is more probably the 'better self in posse which directs the 
operation." 

But how can this be true if, as we have seen above, clearly 
recognised suggestions are not limited to any special type of 
ideas ? for this implies that suggestions to the sub -attentive 
consciousness are in like manner not limited to any special 
type of ideas ; that is, that they may as well be immoral as 
moral. And, whatever these suggestions to the sub-attentive 
consciousness are, if they are effective it must be because they 
are welcomed by this sub-attentive consciousness ; and this 
means that the sub-attentive consciousness is in harmony with 
the ideas welcomed ; so that if immoral suggestions are ever 
effective, it must be because the sub-attentive consciousness is 
less pure, less " sensative to good and evil," than the attentive 
consciousness. 

Now, just this happens in cases of temptation. The 
tempter's suggestions are usually repudiated by the attentive 
consciousness of the tempted man, because he looks upon 
them as immoral ; nevertheless, they so influence the sub- 
attentive consciousness of the tempted man that presently he 
sins without compunction when opportunity offers. 

A similar statement may be made in relation to the process 
of self-sophistication through auto-suggestion. 

We are also compelled to question the statement that 
the sub-attentive consciousness (sub-conscious mind) "has 
more direct control of physical processes than the conscious " 
(p. 42). The sub-attentive consciousness is broader than the 
narrow field of attention ; and its nerve activity correlates 
are doubtless more numerous, and more thoroughly integrated, 
than those corresponding to the mental elements in attention ; 

1 Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 209. 



310 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

but it is difficult to see how what we call mental control of 
physical processes can be more efficient in the one case than 
in the other. 

A dim appreciation of the sub-attentive consciousness is 
involved with all "feeling" and all emotion. We are not 
surprised, therefore, to find the evidences of the activity 
of this so-called " sub-conscious mind " in connection with 
our religious emotions; but it is certainly clear that this 
relation is one that holds for all " feeling," and for all 
emotions, and which therefore cannot be claimed to relate 
especially to our religious life. 

It may be well here also to call attention to the fact that 
attentive consciousness merges into sub-attentive consciousness : 
out of the latter, as it were, appears the flitting field of the 
former. This would lead us to hold that as no sharp line can 
be drawn between the two, so no fundamental distinction can 
be made between the therapeutic value of suggestions made to 
the sub-attentive consciousness and to the attentive conscious- 
ness of the clear-headed rational man. The field of attention 
is the active field, the variable field, the field subject to many 
environmental influences which may prevent the influence of 
suggestions, but which, on the other hand, may make these 
suggestions especially effective if they happen to be co-ordinated 
with those elements of attention which make the substance of 
what we call our convictions. The field of sub-attentive con- 
sciousness, on the contrary, is the less active, the less variable 
field, the field little subject to environmental disturbance, i.e. 
the conservative field, which often will sustain persistently and 
without impediment some suggestion given to it, but which 
can be influenced by a suggestion only provided this latter 
accords with its own essential nature, which is relatively 
unvarying. 

It would thus appear that in a certain sense the efficiency 
of suggestion is in general likely to be less marked in relation 
to the sub-attentive than in relation to the attentive conscious- 
ness ; and is only likely to be more marked in relation to the 



PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS 311 

former if we happen to be dealing with what relates to that 
normal existence which is unconcerned to meet new conditions. 

VIII. We may now turn, within such limits as are here 
appropriate, to the consideration of the nature of that relation 
of our mental and physical states which leads us to say that 
the mind has power over the body. 

The Christian Scientists are more consistent than the 
Emmanuel workers and the average educated man, in that 
the former hold that the mind has power over the whole realm 
of our bodily activities. It is easy for the opponents of this 
cult to offer disproof of any such wide extension of the mind's 
power, but in doing so they present the view that the mind 
has control over the body in certain directions only and not in 
others, and leave us with the highly unsatisfactory notion of 
the common man that the relation of the mind to the body is 
an entirely haphazard and lawless one. 

The category of causality is one upon which we rest, forget- 
ful of its mysteries. Its value is due to the fact that the 
recognition of concrete causal relations enables us to predict 
with certainty events in the future from data found in the 
present. As the result of many experiences we then find 
ourselves gaining satisfaction from the mere statement of the 
existence of a causal relation even where little evidence is at 
hand to warrant such a statement ; we rest content as though 
we had once for all solved all the mysteries involved in the 
relations within the sequence of events we have under con- 
sideration. Thus it is that we satisfy ourselves with the 
assertion that the action of the body causes mental changes, 
and conversely that the mind acts causally upon the body, 
although the greatest uncertainty prevails in prediction as to 
the bodily states that will follow certain mental conditions, 
and as to the mental states that will follow certain bodily 
conditions. 

It is worth our while, therefore, to note that we are aided 
greatly in our comprehension of the relation between our 



312 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

mental states and therapeutics by waiving entirely the question 
as to the causal relation between mind and body, turning our 
attention to the hypothesis of " parallelism " which is held by 
a large body of psychologists in our day, according to which 
each change in the psychic system which we call consciousness 
is accompanied by a coincident change in the activities within 
the nervous system. 

We note in a patient a cerUiin morbid state of mind A, 
which under our hypothesis is necessarily accompanied by a 
morbid nerve condition a. When we make a suggestion to 
the patient the state of mind A is replaced by the state of mind 
B, and coincidently of necessity the nerve condition a gives 
place to a certain new nerve condition /J, a fact which is usually 
overlooked. This new nerve condition ft may be one that 
tends to yield a less morbid nerve condition than a, and may 
thus bring into existence a normal nerve condition y, which 
is evidenced by the appearance of a corresponding happier 
mental condition C. 

Turning to auto-suggestion, which we have seen to be 
identical with voluntary action, we note that if a person " wills " 
the disappearance of a pain, he " wills " the replacement of a 
painful mental state by some other that is not painful. To his 
mental " act of will " there corresponds a nerve change ; and if 
therefore the pain disappears, it is because the alterations of 
nerve activity accompanying the act of will are followed by 
new physical conditions to which correspond the new and 
non-painful mental state. Now we have much reason to 
believe that painful mental states correspond with inefficient 
nerve activities, and the displacement of pain therefore means 
that inefficient nerve activities cease more or less completely. 
The physical parts whose activities were inefficient (to which 
pain corresponded) are thus brought to a condition of quies- 
cence which is a condition favourable to recuperation. If, then, 
there be no serious lesion, the replacement of the pain may 
well be followed by repair of the nerve parts affected, and a 
return to normal conditions. 



PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS 313 

IX. We are thus again led to the conclusion that there is 
no such essential connection between religion and psychothera* 
peutics as is assumed by those whose work is here considered. 
The facts we have presented might lead us to urge the 
physician to encourage the growth of closer and more 
sympathetic relations with the clergy, and to urge the religious 
teacher to trust more implicitly than he does to the trained 
expert ; but if we may judge from the general movement in 
the direction of specialisation, and from a comparison of 
conditions in the past and in the present, the functions of the 
priest and of the physician are likely to become more and 
more distinct in the future. 

It is, of course, a matter of question whether a large 
proportion of the cases treated successfully by the Emmanuel 
Church or Christian Science methods could be benefited if the 
patients were no longer allowed to believe that their cures 
are due to some mysterious or miraculous agency. And this 
raises the broader question whether it is folly to teach wisdom 
where ignorance is bliss. Those who believe that relief from 
pain is of the highest significance in this world would urge us 
to avoid the awakening of the intellect if this awakening means 
the continuance of human suffering. There are those, how- 
ever, with whom the author of this paper allies himself, who 
feel that other ends are more important than the hedonistic, 
and that the greatest nobility of character cannot be gained 
until men are willing calmly to face the facts of life as they 
comprehend them ; that in the long-run it will be better for 
the race to risk the continuance of some suffering among 
weaklings whom the arts of magic can alone relieve, rather 
than to curtail the development of clear thinking among the 
common people. 

HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL. 

NEW YORK. 



THE SOCIAL CONSCIENCE OF THE 
FUTURE. 

I. 

Miss VIDA SCUDDER. 

I. 

THAT the socialist state is surely on the way, few even 
within the movement would dare confidently to assert; 
that many tendencies point to it, few even without the 
movement would dare deny. With the socialist party in 
Germany gaining a million votes in five years ; with a 
socialist labour-party represented in the British Parliament; 
with the Pan- Anglican Congress drawing its largest and 
most eager audiences to hear socialism discussed and in the 
main endorsed by the clergy indications thicken. In Latin 
Europe the socialists are a force to be increasingly reckoned 
with: if the movement in America is less concentrated 
than in smaller or more autocratic countries, the sentiment 
is perhaps more widely diffused. Shooting Niagara and 
After, was the title of one of Carlyle's alarmist pamphlets 
over half a century ago. The stream is broad, and we 
have not shot Niagara yet ; but the sound we hear may be 
the roar of the approaching falls. 

It is, of course, still possible to stop one's ears ; it is 
also feasible to try to work upstream ; and a large number 
of thinkers, and some statesmen, are to-day engaged in this 
pursuit. Meantime, everybody is talking. A great dis- 

314 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 315 

cussion is " on," which bids fair to throw all other intellectual 
interests temporarily into the shade. While it rages, the 
socialist vote continues to increase ; and the idea occurs to 
the impartial observer that an activity apart from defence 
or attack might profitably occupy the sober-minded public: 
getting ready for the possible plunge. 

Moral preparation for the New Order! It might well 
be the watchword of the hour ; it is the last thing of which 
one hears. The militant socialists are too busily engaged 
in aggressive propaganda: so preoccupied with their vision 
of healing and liberation for the body, that they lay them- 
selves open to the charge of feeling slight interest in the 
soul. The conservatives are absorbed in defence. Yet in 
the confusion one fact is clear : should socialism come other- 
wise than as the result of an inward transformation, affecting 
the deep springs of will and love, it would prove the worst 
disaster of any experiment in collective living that the world 
has seen. Matthew Arnold, wisest of Victorian critics, 
pointed out years ago the perils with which the advance 
of democracy is fraught, unless it be achieved through a 
common enlightenment and a pervading social passion. 
Socialism is democracy pushed to an extreme. It would 
involve immensely elaborated machinery. Unless the spirit 
of the living creature be in the wheels, one foresees them 
grinding destruction. Should socialism be other than the 
expression of a general will very different from that of 
to-day, it would be an unbearable tyranny. The only com- 
fort is that it could not endure. The socialist state might 
quite conceivably be ushered in suddenly, forced by revolution 
or by the proletariat vote on an unprepared world which 
had undergone no inner change : it could never be so 
maintained. For no social order can be even relatively 
stable if it is mechanically introduced. It must be a growth, 
and growth has to root deeply underground before it shows 
much in the light of day. No one could enforce laws 
against stealing in a community in which two-thirds of the 



316 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

citizens had kleptomania. Picturing a social demcocray 
introduced by violence, with its ranks of reluctant citizens 
undergoing the industrial conscription, and of autocratic 
officials running a state enemy to all free self-expression, 
one perceives the very " coming slavery " of standard dread. 
The critics who echo Spencer down the decades are right 
enough from their point of view: far more right, in any 
case, than the old-fashioned doubters who saw in socialism a 
future riot of licence. 

The truth is, that we are forced to agree with our tedious 
friends who insist that we "must alter human nature" if 
socialism is to be a success. 

But is the prospect so staggering? Call History to the 
witness-stand ! Human nature alters perpetually before our 
eyes. The stuff is malleable, nay, fluid, and its changes are 
the soul of progress. A moral transformation has accom- 
panied every new social order evolved since the story of the 
race began. Each vanishing civilisation has been at once 
cause and product of distinct ethical types. Nomadic life 
yields to agricultural ; states rise and fall ; a great imperialism 
gathers the nations into its folds, disintegrates, disappears ; a 
feudal system rises, thrives, decays. Industrialism follows, a 
society founded on commercial ability succeeding one founded 
on physical force. The imagination, brooding on these 
various social orders, recognises them, not by their outward 
traits but by the personal types which they produced. The 
consciousness of those delightful young Athenians, disciples of 
Socrates, friends of Plato, created Greece as much as Greece 
created them. It differed from the mind of the Puritan as much 
as that differs from the mind of the man in the street to-day, 
and both from the mind of the Napoleonic general. Emphases 
change as the ages pass ; ideals shape themselves like clouds, 
and like clouds depart. Now these virtues, now those, are 
fostered ; now these sins, now those, run rank. The pioneer 
in that almost untried study, evolutionary psychology, has a 
fascinating field before him. 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 317 

So dramatic is this moral shifting, that the virtues of one 
age sometimes become the vices of another. In the days of 
chivalry, the most popular virtue was to run at your neighbour, 
spear in hand, when you met him on the road, and cheerfully 
to knock him off his horse, in accordance with a courteous 
code of etiquette. We do not approve of this practice to-day, 
and chivalry is gone. A new ethics has replaced it. The 
most popular virtue now is to accumulate money enough to 
educate one's family decorously, with a surplus on which to be 
generous though by so doing one push one's neighbour's 
family to the wall. Further contemplating modern ideals, we 
note that this central virtue of Acquisitiveness is surrounded 
by attendant nymphs : Thrift, Energy, and Foresight. Certain 
old-fashioned traits once considered to be virtues are now com- 
monly counted to men for vices. Non-resistance, for example, 
now considered cowardice in men or states ; meekness, to-day 
usually spelled weakness ; taking no thought for the morrow, 
now known as improvidence ; unworldliness, now generally 
viewed as a phase of sentimentality. A perfunctory verbal 
admiration is accorded these qualities in some quarters, but no 
one looking straight at life can fail to see that the person who 
allowed them to rule his conduct consistently and exclusively, 
would not only be likely to ruin the lives of those dear to him, 
but would in the long run become a public charge. 

In all seriousness, the virtues fostered and applauded by 
our present commercial civilisation are the self-regarding ones. 
Many subtle causes have conspired during the last hundred 
and twenty-five years to produce an ideal in which militant 
violence is at a discount and force is replaced by greed, but in 
which the individual is the centre more exclusively than in any 
preceding phase of history, and the defence of personal rights 
in an indifferent or hostile world is the first canon of duty. 
Till this canon is satisfied, all else must be deferred. The 
moral type which emerges, approved and enticing, is one in 
which integrity is at least nominally honoured, and justice is 
not nominally ignored, but in which alertness and prudence, 



318 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

energy and practical judgment, point the way to victory, while 
mercy, humility, indifference to personal gain, exercised other- 
wise than as an indulgence supplementary to the serious 
business of life, spell social failure and breed contempt. 

Is this instinct of defiant self-protection destined always to 
remain the master-passion in the social structure ? Surely not 
in its present form. We can be sure of only one thing con- 
cerning the industrial and competitive civilisation which has 
so stressed this instinct, and that is, that its hour will strike. 
As the Age of Violence was succeeded by the Age of Greed, so 
the Age of Greed will be succeeded by some other age, in which 
neither physical force nor commercial cleverness will be the 
key-note of the personal ideal. What this new age will be 
like, we do not know. It is always the unexpected that 
happens, and the great forces that control history work out 
into surprising relations and results. We use the term 
socialism as a sort of algebraic expression, ignorant what 
truth may lie behind the symbol. Algebraic formulas, how- 
ever, truly express laws of relation ; and if we wish to infer 
from future probabilities some guidance to present duty, 
the moral correlate to the socialist state is a fruitful topic 
to consider. 

We might as well use what light we have. So far as we 
can see, what is on the way is a great equalisation of wealth, 
such as Arnold long ago asserted to be necessary to social 
advance. It will be achieved by many restrictions and re- 
adjustments. The functions and privileges of the common life 
will assume an importance that we can hardly imagine ; many 
enterprises now run for private profit will be run for public 
good ; many incentives to productive energy now operative 
will be limited or withdrawn. The individual will find his 
outward life more prepared in advance for him, so to speak, 
than is likely to be the case to-day, unless he is either a 
proletarian or an hereditary legislator. One hardly needs to 
enumerate the incoherent forces which are pointing in this 
direction. The slow but sure growth of the working people 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 319 

in class-consciousness, and their entrance on political power, 
the consolidation of industry, the spread of social compunction 
all point the same way. Apparently the great changes that 
are coming will divide the future order from the present as 
widely as we are divided from the feudal system. 

It would certainly do no harm to prepare ourselves, and 
yet more our children, for these probably imminent and drastic 
changes. We might well resume a somewhat discredited 
pursuit the culture and training of the interior life from 
a new point of view. " I wish you to open the New Year 
with a sacrifice to the Graces : to put off the old and on the 
new man," wrote that amazing old worldling, Lord Chester- 
field, to his much-exhorted son. Crises recur when society as 
a whole puts off the old Adam and puts on the new. Seeing 
the great New Year that perhaps trembles at the point of 
dawn, it certainly behoves us to follow Chesterfield's good 
counsel : to endue ourselves, so far as in us lies, with the new 
Adam who can thrive in the socialist state to be. 

II. 

It is not difficult to gain at once a general and superficial 
idea of the work that lies before us. Socialism is going to 
demand a great development of the other-regarding virtues. 
Unless the instincts of fair play and of service, and the habit 
of scrutinising the reactions of one's deeds on the general life, 
become more common than now, the members of the new 
society will have a restive and miserable time of it. Nothing 
is simpler than to begin to train oneself at once in these 
instincts. One can put a little catechism to himself every 
night : Should I have been a good citizen of the socialist state 
to-day ? Have I cultivated in myself the impulses that will 
be abiding incentives to life and labour when incentives born 
of self-interest are limited or removed ? Have I desired 
honour, achievement, serviceableness, rather than mere profit ? 
Have I loved my work (if it be in any wise lovable) for work's 
sake, not for gain's sake ? Have I been as sorry over the 



820 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

sufferings of my neighbour as over my own sufferings, as 
watchful of his interests as of my own ? Has my spirit been 
free from evil suspicion, or from pleasure in getting ahead of 
others, and full of brotherly trust in men ? Have I found my 
joys less in what I call " mine " than in the great beauties and 
blessings we call " ours " ? 

It is all extremely simple. But if we can say " Yes," then 
in our hearts at least the new order has been born. 

But it is worth while to look more deeply into the probable 
reactions of the socialist state upon the interior life. And the 
first patent fact is that socialism is going to bring with it a 
penetrating discipline, perhaps the most universal in pressure 
of any that history has evolved. " Doing as one likes," that 
distinctively British ideal flouted of Arnold, will be at a 
discount. In important and new respects, we shall all 
have to do what the state likes. We shall have to acquiesce 
in laws of life and labour that may inhibit impulse 
and check achievement at a thousand unsuspected points. 
We shall want to go a-fishing : the stern necessities of the 
industrial conscription will stand in the way. Our tastes may 
lie in farming, and an over-supply of farmers reported from 
Government may send us behind the counter. We may 
feel within us the capacity to accumulate millions and bounte- 
ously to scatter them abroad : matters will be so managed 
that neither our generosity nor our acquisitiveness can have 
free scope. All this, of course, on the assumption that we 
now belong to those privileged classes, the members of which 
have such really choice tastes to indulge, and who do so very 
much like to suit themselves. The chaotic independence that 
we now enjoy will vanish like a mist, replaced by an orderly 
social organisation in which individuality, trammelled in 
various ways where it is now free, will have to express itself, 
if at all, through new channels. 

And in all probabilty we shall not enjoy this condition of 
things at all. Distaste for discipline is innate in the human 
breast. We all wail in unison with the little boy in Peter 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 321 

Pan, who cries, " I don't want to take my bath ! " as good 
Nana trots him sternly to the tub. Certainly, the present 
world affords an especially bad introduction to that future 
state. For never was there a period which so shrank from 
disciplines and restrictions of every kind, and so far succeeded 
in throwing them off, as the nineteenth and twentieth 
centuries. See where we stand to-day ! The Churches have 
candidly abandoned all disciplinary functions : a religion of 
good-humour has taken the place of the old religion of fear : 
nay, the horror of discipline has led to the foundation of a 
new popular faith, which regards pain, not as a task-master, 
but as an illusion. Ethical restraints, especially in the 
matter of marriage, are weakening with the religious. The 
substitution of indulgence for discipline in the education of 
children, and the triumphant march of the free elective 
system, point the same way ; while until very lately restraints 
on " individual enterprise " in the industrial sphere were 
viewed with keen suspicion. This relaxation of discipline, in 
the name of freedom and of natural good, which has been 
going on ever since the Revolutionary upheaval, has resulted in 
a curious state of things. Many a critic, from Carlyle down, 
has not hesitated to describe modern life as an organised 
anarchy. To-day, the outcry against social restraint in any 
form still rises vigorously, from dramatists and philosophers as 
well as from the man in the street, and Spencer's lugubrious 
prophecy of the bureaucratic tyranny threatened by socialism 
still finds many an echo : at the same time, he who listens can 
hear an increasing volume of voices in a different song. For 
Carlyle, with his bewildered cry, " Wanted an autocrat," was 
only the first prophet of a strong reaction. A line of thinkers 
down the decades has protested against the riot of individual- 
ism, and demanded a principle of effective authority for the 
salvation of the modern world. Here comes one of the latest, 
Mr Irving Babbitt, ably pointing out the intellectual laxity 
that has resulted from the sway of humanitarianism in its two 

phases inaugurated, so he says, by Bacon and Rousseau the 
Voi,. VII. No. 2. 21 



322 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

extension of knowledge and the extension of sympathy. He 
shows with convincing logic how humanitarianism slips either 
into sentimentality or into scientific accumulation, in neither 
of which is found that power to train in selection and judg- 
ment which is the basis of sound education. Mr Babbitt 
would propose to restore this decaying power by a revival of 
humanistic and classical training in schools and colleges. One 
endorses and applauds, perceiving at the same time that there 
is small chance of effectively restoring the intellectual 
disciplines in a society where the moral disciplines are under- 
mined. The educational world does but reflect in its 
tendencies the larger world without. Contemplating the 
relaxation of all effectual restraints that has gone on for over 
a hundred years, one is assured that a change more profound 
than a revival of classical studies will be needed, if the world is 
to become in the good old sense a school for character. 

Nor can this needed discipline ever be regained by mere 
revivals of any kind. History does not repeat itself. Carlyle's 
hero-autocrat will never bless our eyes again. He has gone 
with the feudal system, and it is to be feared that the classical 
curriculum has disappeared with him, to be "happy in the 
past." 

What then if we looked forward ? What if the prophesied 
tyranny of the socialist state, being fulfilled, should prove 
itself to be not curse but blessing? It is possible, at least. 
The humanitarian movement, which is surely one of the main 
currents sweeping us toward socialism, may in time become 
humane. Through all vapours of sentimentality and material- 
ism, it may flow on and out into a clearer air. Out of its 
own necessities it may generate that power to restrain, select, 
subdue, in which modern civilisation most clearly fails. The 
discipline supplied by socialism may conceivably prove to be 
that very discipline, competent to shape human life to nobler 
likeness, for which our wisest clamour ; and when the " coming 
slavery " is here, we may find in it that service which is perfect 
freedom, 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 323 

But only on one condition : that this authority, with the 
discipline it entails, be the result of the general will of the 
whole enlightened community. Autocracy is one thing; 
voluntary self-control is another. Better our present chaos 
than a state without poverty or disease, established against 
the free will of its members ! A " benevolent despotism " 
imposed from outside, no matter how excellent its results, is 
repudiated by the spirit of democracy. But discipline self- 
imposed is the first requisite of noble manhood. Limit per- 
sonal independence through external tyranny of mob or Czar, 
you produce the slave ; limit it by the choice of the common 
will, you gain the only citizen who is truly free. The advance 
of civilisation is measured by its self-imposed restrictions. 
Already to-day, such restrictions for the sake of the social 
welfare are thickening on every hand. We may no longer 
spit in the street cars, 1 nor take more than a given number 
of lodgers to the cubic feet of air that we control. In countless 
matters the enlightened conscience is limiting its prerogatives, 
in that spirit of joy which transforms sacrifice from mutilation 
to redemption. 

The one chance for the well-being of the great coming 
experiment to which, apparently, we are all but committed, 
is that it shall express a general aspiration and a common 
choice. We may as well be frank. Socialism is going to mean 
a new degree of authority, not over this class or that class but 
over every last man. And the one thing that can, if we wish 
to, make this authority not only enduring but salutary and 
life-giving, will be that it is bestowed by the communal will, 
to the end of the welfare of the whole. In how many ways 
has humanity sought to achieve this welfare ! It has tried 
despotisms ; they ended in disaster : it has tried anarchies ; 
they have left us in our chains. What if the times were 
ripe to try a new way the way of illumined and reasonable 
sacrifice of individual rights to a wider good? Neither the 
Russian autocracy nor the riot of individualistic laissez-faire 

1 This is written of the United States. EDITOR. 



824 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

has conquered conditions under which the majority of men 
are able to attain the full stature of their manhood. But now 
democracy is for the first time coming to its own. Does it 
not whisper in our ear a new possibility a social organisa- 
tion in which equality of opportunity shall be created by the 
deliberate surrender of private privilege, and each child born 
into the world shall grow up under such discipline in modera- 
tion and selflessness as will prohibit his personal powers from 
impeding the full welfare of his fellow-men ? Surely, socialism 
so conceived may be our moral salvation. It may afford the 
God-appointed means to check the self-indulgence that ener- 
vates the modern world, and the egotism that blasts us like 
a disease. Neither reform in education nor indefinite preach- 
ing in the air is likely to produce this result or to afford the 
needed corrective. But a reorganisation of the whole basis of 
society can do it. Nor is it Utopian to believe that such 
reorganisation can be achieved, not by the self-assertion of 
the poor, but by the self-knowledge of all working together. 
To say that it is impossible for the race at large to gain 
sufficient self-control to adopt an order planned at the expense 
of "those spend-thrift liberties that waste liberty," to attain 
the most general diffusion of well-being and opportunity, is 
to despair of human nature. Let the Potter's Wheel, as 
the ages pass, twirl faster; let it mould the clay into forms 
increasingly complex, by pressure increasingly heavy, involved, 
and severe. If the vessel emerge in greater and more service- 
able beauty, the gain is clear ; and the clay will sing to the 
pressure of the wheel. 

III. 

We cannot expect, of course, that the will which creates 
the socialist order should be universal. It will suffice if it be 
as common as the will that to-day keeps honesty and decency 
as the general and outward rule in social life. One sees 
immediately that there will always be some types of people 
miserable in the socialist state. Chief among them are a 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 325 

number of those who are to-day agitating most loudly for 
socialism. Your born malcontent will be extremely ill at ease 
in the social order for which he clamours, and it is amusing to 
contemplate him there ! One foresees him kicking angrily 
against the pricks, and organising reactionary movements in 
the sacred name of personal independence. The windy 
demagogue, the man of words, the restless rebel it is by a 
curious history that he is in the socialist ranks at all. For 
socialism, as we all begin to see, really means an unparalleled 
degree of law and order. Those who promote it are, though 
against their wills, the friends of law ; and Mr Chesterton's 
" Man who was Thursday " is entirely correct in suggesting 
that the Central Council of Rebels is in reality composed of 
members of the secret police. The revolt against civilisation 
during the last hundred years has had two impelling forces : 
self-assertion and self-effacement, individualism and chivalry. 
Despite the Marxian with his scorn for the second, and the 
Churchman with his distrust of the first, both are potent, 
positive, and essential. From Leopardi to Heine, to Tolstoi, 
to Ibsen, to Nietzsche ; from Mazzini to Ruskin, to Morris, to 
Jaures - - the two forces pull side by side, yoke - fellows 
looking askance each on each, but ploughing the furrow 
together. Philanthropists and revolutionists, idealists and 
materialists, socialists and anarchists, confusedly work together 
toward an unseen end. To trace the action and reaction of 
the two forces is a study in distinctions awaiting the social 
psychologist aforesaid. They are still united for attack. 
When this work is done, and the "forts of folly fall," the 
testing of the ranks will be swift and sure. Then it will be 
seen who is the true socialist, for we shall learn which man 
is really at home in the world he has evoked. Who can doubt 
that it will be he who has trained himself spiritually for the 
new order who by watchful self-control has developed the 
new social intuitions, the swift perception of that delicate 
point where the pressure of his own claims and powers might 
inflict injury rather than help on others? This is the man 



326 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

who will make the inner strength of the new state ; and it is 
he who will rejoice in the new order, not the impatient man 
intent on self-development who is the chosen hero of certain 
schools in letters and philosophy. We shall know then that 
the real socialist is he who has been actuated all along, not by 
egotism or the instinct of revolt, but by the resolute longing 
for a state in which each individual shall be competent to 
attain the highest point of development consistent with the 
general welfare. The barren self-assertion, the helpless and 
violent temper of rebellion, the outcry against all that checks 
private self-gratification, which for over a hundred years have 
been mistaking themselves for a passion for freedom, will find 
their logical executioner where they think to find their patron. 
Byronism and Nietzscheism will languish miserably or else, 
and quite conceivably, will form in the new socialism a 
dangerous element that will be allowed just enough freedom 
to act as safety-valve. 

But there are others besides the malcontents who are likely 
to feel painfully the gentle discipline of the socialist state. At 
a word, the pressure will probably be most severe on originality 
and self-indulgence : on the brilliant and the weak. Consider 
for a moment the probable fate of genius under socialism. 
Genius ! that erratic gift so notoriously reluctant to submit 
itself to any disciplines whatever, so confident that the needs 
of its own soul sometimes, alas ! confounded with its senses- 
are the one light by which it must walk ! Well, one does 
foresee a hard time for the artists in particular for the minor 
men, artists by temperament rather than by power. Many a 
man convinced that he is born to be a poet may die with all 
his music in him, having served the community in bitterness 
of soul as cook and bottle-washer to the end. As one contem- 
plates this elimination of minor poets, one congratulates the 
community while commiserating the singers. But what about 
the really great men ? There will be pensions, of course, and 
exemptions. The new order will be very eager to discover 
genius : as soon as a man has justified himself in its eyes it 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 327 

will free him from other pursuits, bidding him paint and write 
for the rejoicing world. But will the world make its selection 
wisely ? Ah, there's the rub. It never did yet. One pictures 
Martin Tupper contentedly pouring forth platitudes on a 
pension, while John Milton writes the Paradise Lost of the 
future in odd moments, when his quota of work is done. 

Well, perhaps the epic will be none the worse for it. 
Eating one's bread with tears, and learning in suffering to 
teach in song, may help in the future as in the past to deepen 
the music. Injustice and neglect have been foster-parents of 
the muse. But of course one does believe that a mighty 
saving of creative power will be effected by the new order. 
A Thomas Chatterton will not commit suicide when that 
good day has dawned. 

For we have to remember the immense amount of social 
waste involved in the present system. When we imagine a 
time in which the majority of children will not be assigned 
before birth to an industrial slavery in which all artistic 
instincts are stifled, we see the unpredictable gain that may 
result. When we contemplate the life of the average man 
to-day, we are to think, not of the university student or the 
successful merchant but of the factory hand, or, if you will, of 
that every tenth man who, unless the social revolution hastens 
its pace, will fill a pauper's grave. Our despotisms and our 
anarchies have alike failed miserably to give this man a chance. 
After a century and a quarter of the industrial individualism 
plus political equality inaugurated with such glowing hopes, 
we face, broadly speaking, a world in bondage. And if social 
reorganisation on broad lines is called for more and more 
loudly, even at the evident cost of some surrender of private 
independence, it is from the growing conviction that such 
surrender is the price to be paid for a rich and full life for the 
majority. 

Our new hope of social welfare was not possible before the 
advent of democracy ; nor was it possible until democracy had 
had time to work for several generations as a leaven within the 



328 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

souls of men. For the self-control and sacrifice for which it 
calls, on the part of the strong, can find motive only in that 
intuition of the Whole which democracy brings, and which 
we feel to-day tingling in every nerve of the social body. 
Freedom ! It is indeed a holy name, in which more crimes are 
committed than those known to Madame Roland. Only to- 
day are we beginning to realise that it is a term of social rather 
than of individual import, never to be realised by the one while 
the many are still bound. True liberty is positive, not negative, 
dealing less with the removal of restriction than with the 
imparting of power. It consists, not in the licence of each 
person to indulge desire, but in the power bestowed by the 
community upon its every member to rise to the level of his 
richest capacity by living in harmony with the Whole. Of this 
freedom, Dante knew more than the schools of the Revolution ; 
for he placed it at the end, not the beginning of humanity's 
journey, and showed it to be a gift awaiting the climber at the 
summit of the mount of discipline rather than a companion of 
the pilgrim way. 

Social welfare is a wider term than personal liberty ; but it 
includes that liberty, even in the narrower sense, just as soon 
as the restrictions through which alone, apparently, it can be 
attained become the result, not of a law imposed from without, 
but of a choice from within the social structure. The joyous 
surrender of personal rights which the socialist state, in accord- 
ance with the common will, must demand from its citizens 
will be in itself the evidence of a high degree of private 
freedom. For the crowning glory and the only thorough 
proof of freedom has always been a willing submission ; and 
the " richest capacity for living in harmony with the Whole " 
may again and again prove a kenosis or self-emptying. " I will 
run the way of Thy commandments when Thou hast set 
my heart at liberty," said the psalmist. The fruit of inner 
liberty is ever obedience to law. Only he possesses who 
refrains, and the way of renunciation is always the way of 
freedom. 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 329 

IV. 

And here at last we reach the heart of our subject. The 
Way of Renunciation the Way of Freedom ! How long 
religion has known this truth ! With what desperation, and 
against what heavy odds, at least in the Western world, has 
she clung to it ! Who can fail to recognise the profound 
paradox and puzzle which from the dawn of Christianity has 
weakened the religious sense of Europe, and tended to make 
the precepts of our religion food for the hypocrite or the cynic ? 
To a large extent, all that makes for the permanence and 
energy of the social structure has seemed to be the exact 
denial of all that makes for sanctity. It was not in jest but 
in earnest that we pointed out at the beginning the stress 
laid by our modern social system on the virtues that con- 
stitute practical efficiency and lead to self-regarding success. 
This emphasis is clearer and more single in an industrial 
democracy like ours than under any previous conditions ; but 
it has been prominent in the whole course of Western civilisa- 
tion. It differentiates our ethical and social conditions from 
those of the East, where these virtues have always been 
more or less at a discount. Not that the East has lacked its 
conquerors or its tyrants ; but that, in a social order at once 
less exacting and more stable, the individual, if he felt the 
craving for the religious life, could at least gratify it, torn 
by no agonising conflict between his duty to the state and 
his duty to his own soul. But how have " the pride of life, 
the tireless powers " in which the West has gloried been sus- 
tained ? Through the pushing eagerness of every individual to 
distance his fellows in the race and to achieve for himself the 
dominance of assured ownership, were it over a large kingdom 
or a small. Self-assertion has been with us more than the 
condition of personal success; it has been the oil on the 
wheels nay, we may go farther, the motive power in the whole 
social machine. The passivity of the non-resistant has been 
recognised by the thinker as a peril to social advance, or at 



330 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

best as innocuous only because so safely rare. A man who 
carried to their logical extreme the precepts of the Sermon on 
the Mount would, as it has frequently been pointed out, bear 
no vital relation whatever to the social Whole, or at least have 
no productive function in regard to it. 

Mercy, humility, poverty of spirit, are indeed endearing 
traits for the parasite and weakling; they may also be 
permitted to the strong man as a decorative adjunct when 
the serious business of life has been attended to. But that 
serious business means the watchful nurture of one's own 
interests, since by the sum total of such devotions equilibrium 
and progress are alike secured. 

During the Middle Ages this emphasis on the self-regard- 
ing virtues was somewhat checked by an authoritative 
hierarchy, both religious and secular, which limited the ambi- 
tion of the individual, no less than by the prominence of the 
monastic ideal as a counsel of perfection. In the modern 
world it has come to prevail all but alone. Yet, while this 
emphasis is clearer and more single to-day than ever before, 
it is worth noting that it is left far more than in the past 
without philosophical foundation. During the Middle Ages 
the world was popularly viewed as a creation of the devil 
and an enemy of the soul ; it was then natural that religious 
virtues should contribute to the destruction rather than to 
the health and permanence of the worldly order. The 
Christian, so far as practicable, withdrew from action ; the 
law of renunciation and sacrifice led too often, though with 
glorious exceptions, to social inefficiency ; and we face, look- 
ing back, the curious phenomenon of two orders confronting 
each other, in opposition not logically sustained yet always 
latent : the World, going on its ancient way of lust and 
chaffering, and Christianity, drawing its most ardent adherents 
away from Vanity Fair into the hush of an existence in which 
action was suspended and self was lost that it might find itself 
in God. 

There were perplexity and inconsistency enough in that 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 331 

situation. There is a new perplexity, a new inconsistency, 
for us to face to-day. Paradox, in the relation of the Christian 
to the world, has become more and more cruel to thinking 
minds ; and the conflict between the ideals of personal holiness 
and of social efficiency has driven many to despair, more to 
denial. For the Manichaean ideal has increasingly lost hold. 
We no longer view the material universe and the structure 
of social life as a lure of the devil, but rather as a sacrament 
revealing the Divine. The true meaning of those great 
dogmas, the Incarnation and the Indwelling of the Spirit, 
begins to be perceived. They unite with the growth of the 
Higher Pantheism to destroy the mediaeval conception that 
living as a productive unit in the social whole is a necessary 
negation of the claims of God. On the contrary, we are 
learning that social well-being is a holy thing, and that so to 
shape our activities that they may minister to it is a primary 
religious duty. To restore to all men their earth-heritage has 
become a sacred aim an aim not to be attained by sporadic 
philanthropies, but by such a shaping of the social order that 
this well-being may be the product of the sum total of the 
normal activities of men. Thus the old conflict between the 
ideals that make for social permanence and those that make 
for individual salvation loses all justification ; and the paradox 
by which the virtues recognised by all Christians to be the 
highest are nevertheless seen to be so impracticable that they 
would, if universal, destroy society, appears in all its naked 
cruelty. 

But what if we were moving toward a state of things in 
which the law of individual selflessness and sacrifice were to 
become the fundamental law of social health? This, and 
nothing less, is essentially the moral transformation demanded 
by socialism. It proposes to translate into terms of social 
efficiency the deepest and most mystical law of spiritual 
being, and to achieve a true harmony between two spheres 
of life which have always appeared hopelessly incompatible. 
Renunciation ! Sacrifice ! They are a necessity of true 



332 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

selfhood so deep, so inward, that it can never be exhausted. 
They will find further reaches, deeper scope, when they shall 
have overcome the initial obstacle presented to their realisation 
by the present social order. But at least it will be a gain 
when we are summoned to practise them by the state, not 
as a private luxury, not as self-immolation to a Setebos, but 
in the name of the larger social self, of which the functions 
can only be performed as the individual joyously surrenders 
all claim to special privilege, and finds in self-subjection his 
true liberty. He who loses his life shall find it! Even in 
nature we begin to perceive this hidden law. We shall 
probably see it more and more clearly there as science advances. 
But it is in the life of humanity that we may look for its 
perfect triumph humanity, that has clung to it with passion 
even when it most seemed to contradict all social progress, and 
to lead to a self-centred and cloistered virtue that dwelt afar 
from the habitations of men and from all productive power. 
This law, gradually accomplishing its work in the hearts of 
men, must in due time reshape the social structure so that 
individual sin need no longer be social virtue, nor individual 
holiness, socially speaking, a negative and unfruitful source. 
That this due time is at least conceivably our own time is not 
for people to deny who have for ever on their lips the prayer, 
Thy Kingdom come on Earth. 

VIDA D. SCUDDER. 



IS THE OLD TESTAMENT A SUITABLE 
BASIS FOR MORAL INSTRUCTION? 

RIGHT REV. J. EDWARD MERCER, D.D., 

Bishop of Tasmania. 

IN the January number of the HIBBERT JOURNAL (1908) it 
was ably argued that religion is a necessary constituent in all 
education, and that educated Christendom will be satisfied with 
nothing less, as a basis for religious education, than the Scrip- 
tures of the Old and New Testaments, with or without the 
Church's interpretation of them. It is also argued that these 
Scriptures present the necessary material in a condensed form, 
that they remain as the one clear record of the Soul of a 
People, and that modern criticism, so far from destroying 
their value, shows us that we are not at the end, but at the 
beginning of their usefulness. 

With the general tenor of the propositions thus laid down 
most serious educationalists will be in sufficient accord. 
Nevertheless, the practical difficulties they involve are both 
numerous and formidable. I propose in this article to limit 
myself to a discussion of those connected with the use of the 
Old Testament as a text-book for moral instruction. 

There are many who still refuse to allow the existence of 
moral difficulties in the Old Testament. They bathe them in 
the glow of religious fervour, or dissolve them in the aqua 
fortis of an unquestioning faith. There are others who, if 
pressed, acknowledge the difficulties, but think it wiser to let 
sleeping dogs lie. And there are others who, clearly seeing 

333 



334 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the difficulties, cannot bring themselves to shut their eyes to 
what are palpable breaches of the civilised moral code, not to 
speak of offences against the Christian law of love. It is, of 
course, with the doubts and perplexities of this last class that 
I propose to deal ; for I have intense sympathy with them. 
And I am bold to maintain that we assume all too easily the 
fitness of the Hebrew Scriptures to serve as a basis for moral 
instruction. 

It cannot be denied that most people have but the vaguest 
ideas of the ethical principles underlying the early stages of 
Hebrew history, and still vaguer ideas of the ethical evolution 
therein manifested. Even when we turn to the writings of 
those who should be experts in this subject, we are most 
frequently sorely disappointed. There is a painful absence of 
any broad grasp of the problems to be faced, and in its stead 
a timid and uncritical treatment of detached details. As a 
consequence, while here and there a ray of light may be thrown 
on a dark place, a rough place smoothed, or a harsh feature 
softened, the larger masses are left in the gloom of a Rem- 
brandtesque background, suggestive but illusive. I speak of 
the writings of those whose aim is constructive. As for the 
merely destructive critic, he fails to perceive, if he does not 
frankly deny, the existence of the soul of the Hebrew race, and 
he does not concern us here. 

The cause of this failure is quite plain. Those who value 
the contents of those Scriptures are afraid lest, in applying 
critical canons, they should damage the feeling of reverence for 
inspiration, or should seem to impugn the righteousness of 
God. And the unwholesome products of this timidity are no 
less self-evident. The intermittent and helpless waverings as 
to the absolute or relative value of the earlier moral codes 
have often strained the moral sense to breaking point, have 
laid the Church open to the powerful artillery of the moral 
critic, and have fostered, if they have not occasioned, periodical 
recrudescences of that fierce spirit and intolerant zeal so opposed 
to the express teaching of Christ. Witness the unconscious, 



THE O.T. AND MORAL INSTRUCTION 335 

but radical, contradiction between the Crusader's cross on his 
breast and the sword in his hand : the tortures of the Inquisi- 
tion and the fires of Smithfield : the burning of Servetus by 
Calvin : the less lovely traits in the character and conduct of 
the early Puritans and the Pilgrim Fathers : the prolonged and 
wholesale murdering of innocent women under the laws dealing 
with witchcraft : and a sad host of similar moral and religious 
tragedies which are blots on the fair escutcheon of Christendom. 
To urge caution in the use of the Old Testament as a 
moral text-book is not to lose sight of its unique revelation of 
the power that makes for righteousness, actually and con- 
tinuously moulding the ideas and ideals of a race specially en- 
dowed with a genius for spiritual things ; nor is it to deny the 
moral leadership of the Hebrews among the peoples of the 
ancient world. It is rather to draw attention to the fact that 
the various stages of ethical development therein delineated 
are marked by immaturities and crudities which, while of 
wonderful significance for a comparative study of ethics, can 
only confuse and weaken such impressions as direct instruction 
seeks to convey. And this fact assumes all the greater im- 
portance when we reflect that the moral difficulties of the Old 
Testament are by no means limited to certain episodes and 
passages which we may call classical, such as the destruction 
of the Canaanites, Deborah's praise of the treachery of Jael, 
the sacrifice of Isaac, the deception of Jacob, and Jephthah's 
vow. Ethical problems manifest themselves on almost every 
page, and are woven into the very texture of the whole. The 
narratives of ancient Israel depict the play of those natural 
impulses which predominate in the initial stages of civilisation, 
and illustrate the sway of custom, simply as custom, in scanty 
dependence on moral feeling. There followed the era of law, 
the peculiar characteristic of which, waiving critical niceties, 
may be said to be its externality ; God's commands were to be 
obeyed, not for their moral content, but because of the danger 
involved in disobedience. The people were in the iron grasp 
of legalised custom and tradition. A pictorial ritual enhanced 



886 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the authority of what might otherwise have been abstractions, 
beyond the reach of immature spiritual apprehension. Even 
the " collective " punishments, which seem to us so wasteful 
and so sweeping, had their due part to play. However 
arbitrary the rules, however unintentional the violation of 
them, the one thing necessary was to inculcate respect for a 
settled constitution. For in the lack of such respect the 
nation could not survive in the struggle for existence. 

The Law was thus a schoolmaster to bring into subjection 
undisciplined desires and passions ; but its rigid externality 
made its yoke intolerable. The nobler spirits were bound to 
rebel. On one hand emerged the notable school of thinkers 
whose ethical conceptions were embodied in the " Wisdom " 
literature. The will of God was no longer regarded as simply 
and purely arbitrary. The fear of the Lord was no longer 
mere fear of a Being able to reward and punish. A higher 
moral elevation was attained. The divine laws were recognised 
as general principles on which the creation was governed, and 
obedience to them was seen to bring men into harmony with 
the supreme wisdom. But in spite of this distinct advance, 
the general spirit of the time was cold and calculating ; the 
fire of inspiration burnt low. Even pessimism reared its 
fearsome head. 

More significant than these, emerged the finer spirits who 
opened a way to true moral freedom. The prophets, urged 
by a growing sense of the worth of the individual, and a 
correlative sense of moral responsibility, burst through the 
bonds of legalism and ceremonialism. And thus it came to 
pass that Isaiah declared his scorn for externalism, and Ezekiel 
proclaimed, with the zeal begotten of new insight, how that 
"the soul that sinneth, it shall die." But the bonds were 
not altogether broken. The blade and ear were there, but 
not the full corn in the ear. The spirit of the prophets had to 
find its highest realisation in the spirit of Christ. 

The relapse into legalism, and its crystallisation in the 
later Pharisaism, take us somewhat beyond the bounds of the 



THE O.T. AND MORAL INSTRUCTION 337 

Old Testament problems, and do not, therefore, require more 
than mere mention. But enough has been said to prove that 
the ethical facts of ancient Hebrew history afford striking 
illustrations of the nature and trend of what is known as 
Progressive Morality. We can see that the earlier stages 
are preparatory for the later; and these later, again, pre- 
paratory for the spiritualised ethics of the New Testament ; 
and that each is immature in comparison with its successor. 
These things being so, does it not follow that those who 
would use the older Scriptures as a basis for moral education 
have before them a task as delicate as it is complicated ? 
Doubtless the possibilities of the case for moral science are 
great all the greater because of the thoroughness demanded 
by the complexity. But must not careful reservations be 
made before we explicitly maintain that this heterogeneous 
material, containing elements so crude and contradictory, is 
fitted for laying the foundations of Christian character? 
Granted that in proportion as the material is digested and 
systematised the greater will be the sphere of its usefulness 
and influence, we have to take things as they are. And can 
we expect that the developing moral faculties will be best 
nourished on precepts, ideals, and histories, which are still 
so perplexing to the most advanced students, which risk a 
confusion of moral issues, and which may even prepare the 
way for moral reactions? 

Let us go into further detail. And be it noted, first of all, 
that to deprecate the use of the Old Testament as a basis for 
direct moral teaching is not to deprecate the use of an an- 
thology from that marvellously varied collection of writings. 
To assert that these scriptures do not contain passages almost 
perfect in matter, form, and tone, would be a gratuitous 
absurdity. A selection of gems could be made which would 
be worthy in every way to stand alongside of the material 
furnished by the New Testament. But I do not think that 
the majority of those who uphold the use of the Old Testa- 
ment as a text-book of morals would be content with a selec- 

VOL. VII. No. 2. 22 



338 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

tion. No doubt they do, in actual practice, select ; but they 
would justify themselves, not on any general principle affect 
ing their choice, but on the necessities of time and opportunity. 
They would insist that the Jewish Canon must be treated as a 
whole ; and this is what I venture to dispute. Again, many 
passages are quietly passed over even by those who most 
keenly champion the use of the whole. But tacit negation, 
with no recognised principle behind it, save a general observ- 
ance of decency, is totally distinct from positive selection, such 
as I here advocate, based on a broad survey of the moral 
principles involved, and with a definite aim before it. We 
have plain proof of lack of principle in the fact that the 
Church of England, impelled by tradition, still orders the 
reading of passages which in any other connection would be 
sternly repressed. 

Let us note, in the second place, that Jesus Christ Himself 
dealt very freely with the Old Testament. He referred to it 
as bearing testimony to His work and His Person. Moreover, 
He often counselled His disciples to study it closely. But He 
was speaking, we must remember, to those who had no other 
scriptures, and whose minds were steeped in its language and 
leading conceptions ; whereas we have the Christian Canon, 
with its more perfect moralising of all motives and ideals. 
They were just emerging from legalism ; whereas we have had 
nineteen centuries in which to imbibe and expand the new law 
of love. And even at the beginning of those nineteen centuries, 
a disciple, quoting from the Old Testament, could incur the 
rebuke, " Ye know not what spirit ye are of." We find, also, 
that in numerous and vital cases Jesus Christ made it clear 
that He regarded much of the Old Testament as being quite 
out of harmony with His own ideas of justice and goodness. 
He not merely abrogated the sayings of the men of old time, 
He condemned them. He proclaimed a kingdom which should 
grow by love, not by force. He broke down barriers of 
exclusiveness which even the prophets had left standing, and 
gave His life to establish a universal Brotherhood. And even 



THE O.T. AND MORAL INSTRUCTION 889 

when not condemning, He often referred to the Old Testament 
to show its incompleteness, to contrast it with His own 
teaching. The Sermon on the Mount takes the place of the 
Old Law, not as ignoring it, but as superseding it. It gives 
us the supreme sanction for holding to the doctrines of pro- 
gressive morality. And it justifies us in relegating the Old 
Testament, as a whole, to the secondary position of a manual 
of comparative ethics essential, indeed, for the full under- 
standing of that which succeeded it, but not essential as a 
basis for the direct and positive teaching of the Christian code. 
This is said, of course, with the reservation contained in the 
preceding paragraph. 

But some may object that I have conjured up imaginary 
difficulties, and that we may trust to the moral forces now at 
work to interpret and correct the imperfections of the earlier 
codes. And to some extent this is undoubtedly the case. 
But making full allowance on this score, I can see dangers 
ahead similar to those experienced in the past. Let us 
remember, for example, how mightily Luther strove to resus- 
citate the spirit of primitive Christianity, and yet how the Old 
Testament blazed out in his denunciations of those poor 
misguided and misgoverned peasants, whom he had at first 
encouraged, but whom he unsparingly denounced when they 
went further than he intended. He tells the princes that 
they are commanded by the Gospel (sic /), so long as the blood 
flows in their veins, to slay such folk. " A rebel is outlawed 
by God and Kaiser. Therefore who can, and will, first 
slaughter such a man does right well ; since upon such a 
common rebel, every man alike is judge and executioner. 
Therefore, who can, shall here openly or secretly, smite, 
slaughter, and stab." " O Lord God," he cries, " when such 
spirit is in the peasants, it is high time that they were 
slaughtered like mad dogs." Do we condemn Luther for 
these denunciations ? In a degree, most decidedly. For 
although his environment was exceptional, and explains 
much, we cannot help feeling that his anger would have 



340 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

taken a worthier form had he worked his way to sounder and 
more consistent views on the moral problems of the Old 
Testament. And Luther's days are ominously near, in senti- 
ment as in date, to our own ! The fierce spirit still lingers as 
an element in our composite nature, ready to show itself on 
strangely small provocation. Moreover, a dangerous alliance 
is springing into existence between this age-old fierceness and 
the cold, inhuman teachings of the materialistic evolutionist. 
The chosen people becomes the selected people. Hence much 
of the apathy with which we regard the drastic treatment of 
uncivilised tribes by Christian nations. Hence much of the 
half-sympathetic acquiescence in the sight of Christendom 
increasingly arming itself to the teeth for aggression as well 
as for defence. It is not long since the pulpits of England 
resounded with defences of the slave trade. 

But the tendency to relapse into the lower morality of the 
older codes, and to confuse the moral issues, is seen in less 
salient forms than those just mentioned. We need not go 
into the question how far certain modern Puritan ideals are 
tinged with Old Testament fierceness. There is simpler and 
clearer evidence at hand. Take the fact that the imprecatory 
psalms still form a recognised and recurrent part of public 
worship. There are some who are beginning to be restive 
under the infliction ; but the multitude are apathetic, and no 
inconsiderable number are eager advocates for the continuance 
of the present system. Or consider a special instance from 
these psalms. One of the sweetest and most pathetic elegies 
in any language concludes with the strange beatitude 
" Blessed shall he be that taketh thy children, and dasheth 
them against the stones." Evidently the psalmist had not 
brought the law forbidding murder into any vital connection 
with his desire for revenge. We can understand him even 
sympathise with him in his glowing zeal for his people and 
his royal city. But when our own great-grandparents wanted 
a metrical version of the psalms, we should have anticipated a 
desire to throw a veil over the terrible intensity of the stern 



THE O.T. AND MORAL INSTRUCTION 341 

patriot. Instead of this we find their chosen poet exulting in 
the chance of lurid colouring, and turning the Beatus into a 
Ter beatus. 






" Thrice blest, who, with just rage possest, 
Shall snatch thy children from the breast, 
And, deaf to all the parents' moans, 
Shall dash their heads against the stones." 



Such lucubrations were fairly harmless, and the singers of 
them lived in a very different world from that which they 
imagined they thus perpetuated. Still, there is food for 
reflection in the fact that they sang them at all. And this is 
all the more significant when we realise that so few of the 
modern popular exegetes and commentators make any pre- 
tence of coming to grips with the live issues. Even the gentle, 
loving soul of a Keble could find nothing more to say of such 
passages than that " the Holy Ghost puts words into our 
mouth which we should have been afraid to have spoken of 
ourselves." No, the dangers are not past, while the true 
position and function of the Old Testament are still so widely 
misunderstood. 

The momentum of old dogmas and traditions carries us 
on in spite of ourselves. The true character of the situation 
will emerge more clearly if we consider its parallel in a sphere 
which sufficiently excludes theological prejudice. I suppose 
there are few Christian educationalists who do not sympathise 
with Plato in his emphatic repudiation of certain elements in 
Greek myth and poetry regarded as material for the education 
of the good citizen. He condemned, from this standpoint, all 
stories which tended to lower the more spiritual standard to 
which his race had attained in their conceptions of what was 
highest and best in gods and men. God must always be 
presented as good, and the author of good. The heroes must 
be types of obedience to moral principle. In brief, the moral 
influences brought to bear in education must be as pure and 
elevated as the conditions will allow. Now I venture to hold 
that all this applies much more directly to the Old Testament 



342 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

than many would imagine. Take, as an obvious example, the 
conception of God which prevails in large sections of its varied 
contents. God is continuously represented as speaking and 
acting in ways which offend our moral sense. He issues 
commands to slaughter even the babes unborn. Many of His 
punishments are wholesale and capricious. He gives His 
formal approval of slavery, allowing little children to be 
bought and sold as well as adults. He provides that Jewish 
slaves shall be more kindly treated than other slaves. He 
gives the strange law that a man shall not be punished for 
beating his slave to death, if the poor assaulted wretch does 
not die out of hand, but lingers for a day or two ; and adds 
the still stranger reason, that the slave is his owner's money. 
Such are some of the more striking instances from what 
constitutes a fairly homogeneous whole. 

How shall we explain such views of God as were held by 
the Israelite of old ? The question is not an easy one. Recall 
Hobbes' teaching, " That which God does is made just by 
His doing it; just, I say, in Him, though not always in 
us. ... Power irresistible justifies all actions, really and 
properly, in whomsoever it is found. . . . God cannot sin, 
because His doing a thing makes it just .... to say that 
God can so order the world, as a sin may be necessarily caused 
thereby in a man, I do not see how it is any dishonour to 
Him." Will it be held that such a line of defence is impossible 
for a Christian ? I most emphatically concur. But I cannot 
forget Dean Mansel and Sir William Hamilton. If I turn 
to so sound and approved a moralist as Bishop Butler, I find 
that though he does not explicitly allow that the Hebrew 
ethical standard was inferior to ours (Analogy, pt. ii. ch. iii.), 
he nevertheless elects to defend the position entirely from the 
side of the divine will, arguing that God has the right to 
destroy life, and to use man as an instrument to effect His 
purposes. And I find a similar line of defence adopted by 
an apologist in a book authorised and issued by a Society 
which is thoroughly representative of the Church of England. 



THE O.T. AND MORAL INSTRUCTION 348 

The line of defence taken is that the Hebrews, in their 
destruction of the Canaanites, acted simply as destroying or 
punitive agencies in God's hand, like the storm, the pestilence, 
or the earthquake. 

The objections to such a view are surely overwhelming, 
and justify the famous outburst of John Stuart Mill when 
asked to attribute to God acts which our highest human 
morality does not sanction. " Whatever power such a being 
may have over me, there is one thing which he shall not do : 
he shall not compel me to worship him." How can we 
worship such a God ? For, guided by the best we know, 
we simply refuse to believe that the moral Governor of the 
universe could issue such commands now, in the present day. 
Further, were such commands issued, we should disregard 
them, denying them to be divine. And the moral ground 
for such refusal is plain for all to see. When man acts as an 
agent, he acts as a conscious agent. He is a moral being. 
And thus he differs by a whole heaven of difference from the 
unconscious storm or pestilence. God would not be Himself, 
we feel, were He to coerce or trample on the freedom of a 
moral agent, even though that agent be one so feeble and 
erring as mortal man. 

If it is contended that a higher form of exegesis, founded 
on a more enlightened criticism, will remove these difficulties, 
I cannot altogether agree. For the whole drama of human 
history has unrolled itself under the supreme guidance of the 
moral Governor of the universe ; and we are thus driven to ask 
why morality should have passed through these lower stages 
on the road to the higher. No doubt we here touch a problem 
of cosmic significance but we touch it in a form, it seems to 
me, quite unnecessarily acute when we use the Old Testament 
as a text-book of ethics. At a later period the student of 
ethics may grapple with these great difficulties, and may reach 
some theory of progressive morality which shall enable him to 
vindicate the divine righteousness without stifling the prompt- 
ings of a healthy moral judgment. I believe that such a 



344 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

vindication is possible, proceeding on lines suggested by St 
Augustine. The start would be from an explicit recognition 
of the fact that the moral standard of the Hebrews had not 
risen to the level at which they would rebel against such 
sentiments and conceptions. The strict intuitionalist doctrine 
concerning conscience would have to be frankly abandoned. 
But why bring such advanced reasonings into an elementary 
text-book ? And even granting the soundness of the reason- 
ings, have we yet applied them with sufficient lucidity and 
thoroughness to the Hebrew scriptures to warrant our general 
use of these for instruction in fundamentals ? 

Guiding ourselves yet once again by Plato's doctrines, let 
us glance at the Greek drama, that mirror held to nature which 
reflects, in all their essential features, the same problems as 
the Old Testament the clashing of varying and discordant 
ethical codes, and the unravelling of moral perplexities. Let 
us take a typical example. The Electro, of Euripides was 
performed recently in London on a splendid scale, and Canon 
Scott Holland has given a vivid account which I most gladly 
quote. " Tremendous ! " he writes ; " yet what is it which 
holds us back in the play, and forbids us to yield ourselves to 
its appeal ? The truth is that the collision between the ex- 
quisite modernity of the spirit in the play and the brutal 
savagery of the story is too violent. The story belongs to the 
heroics of barbaric passion. We are face to face with the 
simplicities of elemental man, as we encounter them, say, in 
the Jewish psalms of retaliation and denunciation. Man is 
stripped bare ; his naked being exhibits the play of every 
instinct, unqualified and untempered. . . . But, then, here is 
Euripides, flinging into the savage and heroic setting all that 
comes from delicate and subtle thought, playing hither and 
thither round spiritual problems, the touch of fine emotion ; 
the thrill of sensitive souls ; the movement of quivering 
wonder and pity and tenderness ; the lissome interchange of 
antithetical sympathies, the quick questioning of a conscience 
that is alive to the conflicts of varying motives and appeals. 



THE O.T. AND MORAL INSTRUCTION 345 

How can all this consort with the scene on which it is to play 
its part? If we yield to the spell, then the play becomes 
horrible, bloody, gross, improbable." 

Does not this powerfully drawn contrast suggest parallels 
only too obvious in the results of our attempts to weld 
together the Old Testament and the New to form a basis for 
direct teaching of the fundamentals of morality ? Many of the 
passages in the " First Lessons " clash well-nigh insupportably 
with those in the " Second Lessons." We are still slaves to 
imperfect theories and worn-out preconceptions. It is bad 
enough to raise such moral discords in acts of public worship. 
It is still worse to set vibrating such moral discords in what 
Plato calls " the tender souls of children," which, " like blocks 
of wax," are ready to take any impression, and which are so 
quickly deformed and distorted. Nay, we would, by thus 
acting, come perilously near to incurring the censure of Him 
who sternly warned against harming those " tender souls," of 
whom He declared that of such is, not the gloomy wrath and 
fierceness of the old order, but the joy, and brightness, and 
love of the Kingdom of Heaven. 

J. E. TASMANIA. 



THE CENTRAL PROBLEM OF THE 

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON 

MORAL EDUCATION. 

PROFESSOR J. H. MUIRHEAD. 

THE significance of the International Congress on Moral 
Education held at the University of London at the end of 
September is sufficiently indicated by the fact that delegates 
had been sent to it by no fewer than fifteen Governments, 
some of them thinkers and writers of world-wide reputation 
in their own fields. During the four days of the Congress 
it is not too much to say that every aspect of education 
was touched upon. The committee had the happy idea 
of inviting a number of papers on the different subjects 
put down for discussion, causing them to be printed both 
in extenso and in condensed form, circulated among the 
members of the Congress, and taken as read. The result was 
that the speeches which were delivered had been prepared in 
full view of all the contributions before the meeting, or were 
the result of the actual collision of opinion in the heat of 
discussion. The proceedings thus acquired a life and the con- 
victions that were expressed an impressiveness that are rare 
in such conferences. It is hardly conceivable that an attentive 
listener should have been present at any of the sessions without 
having his views enlarged and modified on the subject under 
discussion. Few, probably, returned from the Congress to their 
work, whether as teachers, educational writers, or adminis- 
trators, without feeling how much was to be said for views and 

346 



MORAL EDUCATION 347 

methods not their own, and on the other hand how little they 
had understood of the real inwardness of those they had 
themselves accepted. 

Even with much larger space than I have at my disposal 
1 should find it difficult to give any idea of the issues that 
were raised and the conclusions that were sometimes pointed 
to and sometimes were not. I do not propose to try, but 
to assume that tht> readers of the HIBBERT JOURNAL will 
be chiefly interested in the discussion which occupied the 
central place in the programme the Relation of Religious 
to Moral Education. Even here I wish to confine myself to 
one point, to me the central one. No less than thirteen 
papers had been written for the session. The best-known 
among the writers the Rev. Hon. Edward Lyttelton, Dr 
Gow, Fathers Maher and Sydney F. Smith, the Rev. Morris 
Joseph, and Mrs Bryant together with the presence on the 
platform of two Bishops, seemed sufficient guarantee that the 
discussion would move within the limits of orthodoxy and 
be confined to practical questions. As it happened, the 
Chairman was misled by this array and by the superficial 
trend of the majority of the papers, and sought to confine the 
discussion within these limits. It was like Mrs Partington's 
well-meant endeavour. Men had not come from the Lycees 
of France, from the Universities and Government Depart- 
ments of Germany and Japan, to discuss the moral efficacy 
of the reading of the Greek Testament as a substitute for 
systematic religious and moral instruction. 

It was clear that the real issue before the Congress was 
not as to the desirability and practicality of religious teaching, 
but as to the possibility of finding any meaning or relevance 
in the ordinary religious ideas that could be acknowledged by 
teachers and educationists who were in touch with the modern 
spirit. When an hour later they left the hall, there were few, 
whatever their sympathies, who did not feel that, had this 
ruling held, a unique opportunity would have been missed 
of having the two great ideals of education, which, for the 



348 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

last century, have slowly been recognising each other as 
mortal foes, clearly set forth by some of the ablest of their 
respective supporters. There was a dramatic element in the 
session which sharpened the antithesis. For the first half 
of the time it seemed as though the issue would be 
confined to differences in doctrinal emphasis and in peda- 
gogical methods. The wider question was first broached by 
M. Ferdinand Buisson of Paris, who in a short, courageous 
paper made it clear that the leading French educationists had 
long ceased to regard religion as any part of the content of 
moral education or as having any vital relation to it. Religion 
is to receive a formal acknowledgment. Children must be 
taught "the respect due to the idea of religion and the 
tolerance due to all its forms without exception. But for the 
rest they are to be taught that the chief mode of honouring 
God consists in each doing his duty according to his conscience 
and his reason." After his speech, everyone present seemed 
to feel that in the conflict of ideals he had succeeded in 
indicating, the whole problem of modern education was con- 
tained as in a nutshell: all other conflicts were trivial in 
comparison. It was not that the supporters of each of these 
ideals had not known of the existence of the other, but that 
the authority and sincerity with which the speeches were 
delivered on both sides, the touch of personal conviction in 
men of international reputation, arrested attention and seemed 
to give a depth and a meaning to the several contentions 
which they had not before possessed. 

On the one side, which, for want of a better name, may 
be called the Positivist, there was the emphasis on the con- 
crete, the connection of conduct with social, industrial, civic, 
and political well-being. In character lie the issues of life for 
individual communities and humanity at large. There was, 
further, the uncompromising claim for freedom of conscience, 
the insistence on intellectual sincerity as the very fountain- 
head of moral rectitude. No individual or nation can under- 
value veracity and continue to count as a member of a spiritual 



MORAL EDUCATION 349 

community. As compared with the interests here involved, 
theologies and doctrinal differences, if advocated in themselves, 
are as unsubstantial shadows ; while if they are turned, as 
too commonly they are, into a ground of intolerance and 
superstition, or, worse still, of acquiescence in existing 
social conditions, they are the most serious obstacle against 
which progressive forces have to contend. 

Just here the other side made itself heard. All this is an 
accident of particular forms of religion. What religion stands 
for is not any particular system of dogma or discipline, but the 
indefeasible claim for the inwardness of morality, for the re- 
cognition of the eternal distinction between the natural and 
the spiritual, and, going along with this, of the reality of sin and 
the necessity of rising, through a grace which is not our own, 
from mere natural goodness of heart to a vivid sense of the de- 
mand that our souls' deeper attachments make upon us. True, 
this implies the belief in the reality of these attachments, but 
this itself is part of the witness of consciousness. It is popularly 
called faith in God, but its essence is not the belief in anything 
supernatural and transcendental, but the sense of a wider 
fellowship than that represented by any individual society or 
even group or succession of societies upon this planet the 
conviction that, in ways we are far from completely under- 
standing, the real underlying forces of the world are on the 
side of our best aspirations, that the ideal is the real, and is 
most real where it is most true to itself as an ideal. Nor is 
this faith mere matter of speculation, without effect on moral 
conduct. It is put on a false footing, compromised and forfeited 
rather than fortified by the advocacy of those who seek in it a 
supernatural sanction for moral conduct. But this ought not 
to create prejudice or blind us to its real influence in purifying 
and refining character and in furnishing the natural breath of 
spiritual graces humility, fortitude, resignation, hope, trust, 
joy which live with difficulty in the more rarefied atmosphere 
of Positivist belief. 

Are these two ideals really incompatible ? Or rather, 



350 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

since neither of them can really afford to ignore or repudiate 
the other, is it impossible to find a background of reasoned 
belief that will make it possible to unite them in a new and 
satisfying synthesis ? This was the question that was inevitably 
suggested by this remarkable debate, which in a moment was 
seen to have grown from parochial to universal interest. 

The aim of this short article, written at the request of the 
Editor, has been to try to fix the main issue that was presented 
to the Congress, the point at which its discussions touched 
the fundamental problems of our time. Having done this, 
I might close. Perhaps it would be wiser to do so. But as 
I ventured at the time to point the contrast and indicate what 
I believed to be the line of reconciliation, I may perhaps 
be permitted to add one or two sentences, chiefly of quotation, 
from what I then said. 

1. Positivism in all its forms rests ultimately on the antithesis 
between man and nature and the limitation of our insight to 
the " human synthesis." In view of our widening knowledge 
of the nature and meaning of the world in which we live, it 
is not likely long to remain possible to maintain the rigidity 
of this distinction. More and more we are coming to realise 
here, through the study of the forces operative in civilisation ; 
there, through the study of the relation between mind and 
body, the organic and the inorganic ; here, again, through the 
study of the human mind itself in its operations as will and 
intelligence the essential relativity of man and nature, the 
underlying unity of the material and the spiritual. 

2. Going along with this, and indeed a corollary from it, 
is the growing recognition of the priority of spirit a priority 
which, to be realised, has to assert itself through the control 
and the transformation of the natural into the form of the 
spiritual. Human life at its best consists in no easy-going 
acceptance of natural law, or acquiescence in forms of life 
and conduct, social or individual, that are fixed for us by 
inheritance or external circumstances. It consists rather in 



MORAL EDUCATION 351 

the continuous effort to realise, under the forms of time, 
aspirations that carry us beyond time. 

3. Such a view, when we come to realise what is involved 
in it, is likely to carry us equally beyond anything which has 
hitherto been regarded as adequate religious teaching, and be- 
yond the current ideal of secular education. So far from being 
a support to morality, much that goes by the name of religious 
instruction will be seen to cut at the roots of what is best in 
it. On the other hand, it will be seen that current Positivism 
requires to be freed from what is merely local and temporary 
in it and supplemented in the light of a larger philosophy. 

The new religious thought will appropriate with gratitude 
what Positivism has so nobly taught, but will seek in 
addition to raise this teaching to a higher power by its faith 
in the ideals of humanity as something to which the universe 
itself is pledged. If it comes with no addition to the content 
of morality, no " duties to God " which are not also duties to 
ourselves and our fellow-men, religion as above defined has the 
power of giving a deeper significance to conduct by connecting 
its laws with the general purposes of the universe so far as 
we can understand them. Following on this, religion brings 
a new form of emotion in the confidence it inspires in the 
ultimate triumph of the good. " A man's confidence in 
himself," said Hegel, " is much the same as his confidence in 
the universe and in God," and what is true of the indi- 
vidual is true of humanity. Without such confidence, it is 
difficult to see with what ultimate convincingness appeal can 
be made to the ideals of humanity ; with it, we are beginning 
to see how a new inspiration can be brought to the work of 
moral education as the development in souls, prepared by their 
own deepest instincts to respond, of an attitude of mind which 
shall be true not only to their own manhood and womanhood 
in what is seen and temporal, but to that which is unseen and 
eternal in the world at large. 

J. H. MUIRHEAD. 

BIRMINGHAM. 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 

AN APPEAL FOR CONSISTENCY. 

THE REV. R. ROBERTS, 

Congregational Minister ; late Chairman of the Bradford Education Committee. 

RECENT criticism of the New Testament has gathered around 
Jesus Christ and the testimony of its various documents to 
His person and work. This has characterised not merely the 
technically called Evangelical churches, but has also marked 
large sections of the Roman obedience on the extreme right 
and influential scholars in the Unitarian church on the extreme 
left. For the scholarly divines and the devotional lay minds 
who have felt the force of this great current of Western 
thought in the sphere of religion, it is scarcely an exaggera- 
tion to say that Jesus Christ is Christianity. The several 
parts of the New Testament are in the main narratives of 
His supposed life and teaching, or theories of various kinds 
built upon them. But neither the narratives nor the theories 
are Jesus Christ. 

With certain reservations, it may be said that the group of 
doctrines known as " Evangelicalism " is the common property 
of Western Christendom. In developing its thought "back 
to Christ," Evangelicalism has found itself driven to make 
stupendous claims on behalf of Jesus. It is not possible, 
within the compass of this article, to set forth those claims 
with any approach to fulness, nor to state fully the numerous 
and grave misgivings which they create for the modern mind. 
But on the threshold of even such treatment as is here possible 

352 



r l 1 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 353 



one finds himself beset by an initial difficulty. Perhaps 1 can 
best express that difficulty in the form of the following ques- 
tions : Are the claims to be presently set forth made on 
behalf of a spiritual " Ideal " to which we may provisionally 
apply the word " Christ," or are they predicated of Jesus ? 
The apologists do not frankly face these questions. The 
reluctance to do so renders it difficult to make any pertinent 
criticism of the claims. For it may easily turn out that in- 
sistence on limitations of knowledge, restrictions of outlook, 
evasions of issues, and disillusionments of experience true 
enough of an historic Jesus may not be wholly relevant to 
a spiritual " Christ Ideal " expanding and enriching through 
the ages into " the Christ that is to be." To one who was 
the "fulness of Godhead" bodily expressed, "Very God of 
Very God,*' they could not be attributed at all, without such 
a strain as would crack the sinews of language, reducing the 
sequences of speech to incoherences of thought. 

The vast sweep of these claims becomes apparent in the 
following citations from writers who have laid the Christian 
world under a heavy obligation by their elevation of thought 
and spirit, the chastened scholarship, the fine yet reasoned 
reverence of their work. 1 select first a somewhat abstract 
statement of the " Modernist " position in the Roman 
communion : 

"The whole doctrine of Christ's KCVWO-IS, or self-emptying, can be ex- 
plained in a minimising way almost fatal to devotion, and calculated to rob 
the Incarnation of all its helpfulness by leaving the ordinary mind with 
something perilously near the phantasmal Christ of the Docetans. Christ, 
we are truly taught to believe, laid aside by a free act all those prerogatives 
which were His birthright as the God-man, that He might not be better off 
than we who have to win our share in that glory through humiliation and 
suffering, that He might be a High Priest touched with a feeling for our 
infirmities, tempted as we in all points, sin only excepted" (Through Scylla and 
Charybdis, p. 98, the Rev. George Tyrrell). 

The learned Catholic scholar above cited has his own 
quarrel with the terms of this statement. But his uneasiness 
as to its phrasing does not touch the purpose for which it is 
here quoted, the point of which is to show that Jesus and 

VOL. VII. No. % 28 



354 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Christ are terms used interchangeably ; that the " self-empty- 
ing" of the God-man has no meaning apart from a historic 
life conditioned by the limitations of ordinary humanity ; and 
that He, in His humiliation, felt the poignancy of all such 
temptations as assault our frail nature, sin only excepted. 

Coming now to the Anglican church, the opinion of the 
late revered Bishop Westcott will be accepted as representative 
of a large school of thought within and without his own com- 
munion. On the significance of Jesus for the Christian life 
and doctrine he says : 

"We look back indeed for a moment upon the long line of witnesses 
whose works, on which we have entered, attest the efficacy of His unfailing 
Presence, but then we look away from all else (d^optovres) to Jesus the leader 
and perfecter of faith, who in His humanity met every temptation which can 
assail us and crowned with sovereign victory the force which He offers for our 
support" (Christus Consummator, p. 156). 

And still more pointedly in the same volume : 

" The Gospel of Christ Incarnate, the Gospel of the Holy Trinity in the 
terms of human life, which we have to announce covers every imaginable fact 
of life to the end of time, and is new now as it has been new in all the past, 
new in its power and new in its meaning, while the world lasts" (Christus 
Consummator, p. 171). 

Passing now to those churches known as Nonconformist, 
Principal Fairbairn, writing of the " historical Christ," says : 

" The Person that literature felt to be its loftiest ideal, philosophy conceived 
as its highest personality, criticism as its supreme problem, theology as its 
fundamental datum, religion as its cardinal necessity" (Christ in Modern 
Theology, p. 294). 

Twelve years of building construction separate the work 
containing this sentence from the next quotation to be cited. 
I select a somewhat more detailed paragraph from The Ascent 
through Christ, by the Rev. Principal E. Griffith Jones. On 
the last page of this very interesting volume we find the 
following passage : 

" We do our Master little honour when we place Him among a group of 
teachers competing for the acceptance of men. He is not one of many 
founders of religions. He is the source and fountain of all, in so far as they 
have caught a prophetic glimpse of His truth, and anticipated something of 
His spirit, and given a scattered hint here and there of His secret. He is the 
truth, the type, the saving grace, of which they faintly and vaguely dreamed ; 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 355 

the Desire of all Nations, the Crown and Essence of Humanity, the Saviour of 
the World, who by the loftiness of His teaching, the beauty of His character, 
the sufficiency of His atoning sacrifice, is able to save to the uttermost all who 
will come to Him and trust in Him " (The Ascent through Christ). 

The final quotation to be made will represent a scholarly 
and conservative school of Unitarian thought. The Rev. Dr 
James Drummond was selected to deliver the last of the well- 
known series of Hibbert Lectures, and from it I take the 
following passage : 

" The Word made flesh discloses to us, not some particular truth or require- 
ment, but the very spirit and character of God, so far as we are able to 
apprehend it; for the Divine Thought is God Himself passing into self- 
manifestation, just as our speech is our own personality entering into com- 
munication with others" (Hibbert Lecture, Via, Veritas, Vita, p. 312). 

" Word " and " Thought " are both implied in the Greek 
" Logos." On the Evangelical theory, the " flesh " was Jesus, 
not Christ. If I understand Dr Drurnmond's position aright, 
whether it was as " Divine Word " or as " Divine Thought " 
it was still " God Himself" who dwelt in the fleshly tabernacle 
known as Jesus. But on both theories there is a localisation 
of the Infinite, a differentiated moment in eternity, a limita- 
tion within the conditions of a fleeting human organism of the 
Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Perfect God. If Jesus was the 
" Word made Flesh," and if this same " Word " or, to meet 
Dr Drummond's position, * Thought " was " God Himself," 
then it would seem difficult to resist the inference that Jesus 
was God. Such a position involves all the claims which the 
quotations now cited have made on behalf of Jesus. Dr 
Drummond does not indeed draw out the implications of the 
position with the startling vividness which we find in Principals 
Fairbairn and Jones. The great Unitarian scholar is mainly 
concerned with the ethical and spiritual content. It is within 
the sphere of morals he is anxious to affirm the peerless 
position of the " Word made flesh," and it is notable that 
nearly throughout the lecture the position thus claimed is 
associated with Christ. Jesus, as distinct from Christ, makes 
but an occasional appearance in the lecture-room of this 



356 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

" Hibbert " lecturer. Yet it cannot but be that His presence 
is felt in every phase of the lecture, for it is only in and through 
" the flesh " that the Word becomes the subject of history and 
enters into relationship with men. When we remember the 
very rich content of the Greek " Logos," and that " the Divine 
Thought is God Himself," it seems impossible to limit His 
presence and potency within the sphere with which the 
lecturer is dealing. God is not to be so confined. No part 
of the universe is without Him, and thus it appears to me 
that the two distinguished Congregational scholars have but 
drawn out to their logical conclusions ideas implicit in Dr 
Drummond's Unitarian position. The claims thus made on 
behalf of Jesus are what I have ventured to describe them, 
"stupendous." When their character, scope, and magnitude 
are considered in the light of New Testament documents and 
in that of the secular literature nearest to New Testament 
times, a disturbing sense of disproportion between the claims 
made and the historical evidence legitimately producible in 
support of them grows upon the mind. 

In dealing with the evidence which is submitted, it cannot 
be overlooked that statements made as to Jesus cannot 
properly be admitted as evidence for Christ. Dr Percy 
Gardner, as will be presently shown, has observed the distinc- 
tion here made. But in the current literature, in the 
hymnology, and in almost all sermons the rule is to take 
statements as to Jesus and apply them to Christ. A remark- 
able example of this is found in Dr Fairbairn's Christ in 
Modern Theology, where (p. 353) passages relating to Jesus 
in the footnote are adduced in the text as evidence for Christ. 
The illegitimacy of this process becomes apparent when the 
differing character of the two words is borne in mind, and 
when the historic process of the passage of Jesus into Christ 
becomes more clearly understood. This is one of the many 
reasons why increasing numbers of people find their confidence 
in the very bases of the Evangelical faith most seriously 
disturbed. 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 357 

The silence of non- Christian literature as to Jesus has more 
significance than is usually assigned to it. The point, however, 
cannot be developed here. 

When we turn to the New Testament, we have a body of 
literature whose evidential value has been, and still is, the 
riddle of Christendom. Close and careful reading of its 
documents reduces our knowledge of the actual facts of the 
life of Jesus to a small, and, it must be added, a narrowing 
compass. Beyond the narrative of birth and infancy and one 
incident in the boyhood, the Synoptists give us only detached 
fragments of events in one year of His life. The Johannine 
narrative extends the chronology so as to cover portions of 
perhaps the last three years. Criticism, of course, greatly 
reduces the value of this face view of the story. Following it, 
we pass through narrowing areas of admissible statement, and, 
guided by Dr Schmiedel's " pillar," pass ages, till we reach the 
position of Professor Khaltoff, from which the figure of the 
historic Jesus has completely vanished. 

So far, I have dealt only with the alleged events of the 
life. With the exceptions named, they seem to have dis- 
appeared from Apostolic literature. To Apostolic literature 
the Jesus of the Gospels, apart from the incidents mentioned, 
is unknown. But the case as to the alleged teaching is still 
more disturbing. On the modern Evangelical theory, this 
teaching is the whole groundwork of Christian theology 
and institutions. Moreover, in the contentions l which, it is 
said, distressed the early churches, the teaching, if it then 
existed as we have it, would have been the first thing to be 
produced, and in nearly the whole of the Pauline disputa- 
tions its production would have been decisive. Yet the fact 
is that, with one exception, we have no single statement of 
the teaching produced in Jesus' own words. That alleged 

1 Paul contended for the freedom of the spirit against the bondage of the 
letter. The teaching on the Sabbath attributed to Jesus, especially the text, 
" The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath/' would have been 
decisive. 



358 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

exception is the Eucharistic formula in Corinthians. Con- 
sidering the immense stress laid by modern theological 
criticism on the authority of Jesus in the sphere of morals 
and religion, the fact that the Christian documents chrono- 
logically nearest to His times do not consider it worth while 
to quote His words is not a little disconcerting. I do not wish 
to forget the limitations attaching to arguments from silence. 
But I may remark that they are more strictly applicable 
to ordinary literature, written under the normal conditions 
of humanity and for the common purposes of literature and 
life. This, however, is not the case with New Testament 
literature. It purports, so it is affirmed, to be an exposition 
of the life, work, and teaching of One who came to reveal 
the Father, to give the world assurance of new truth, and 
to lay upon mankind the authority of a new, universal, and 
eternally binding moral code. These claims may or may 
not have lain latent in the " sayings " on which they are said 
to be based, and it may be also that the historic Christology 
of Christendom is but their formal expression. Be that as it 
may, they are part of the literary output of the times and 
countries which produced them, and alike in their noblest 
passages and in their legendary parts they carry the impress 
of their " place of origin." 

They are in harmony with the intellectual climate of that 
part and age of the world. An instructed Jew would be 
familiar with the thought in almost every passage attributed 
to Jesus. A cultivated Roman versed in the literature of 
the Graeco- Roman world would find no difficulty in narratives 
of blind men restored to sight, of lame men regaining the 
use of their limbs, of divine heroes born of a virgin mother, 
and of dead men restored to life. These were some of the 
normal products of that mental climate. But the New 
Testament marvels have outlived that climate, and, like an 
Alpine plant occasionally found on Yorkshire moors, they 
live on in new and strange surroundings. But they did not 
and they could not awaken the many-sided reflections in 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 359 

apostolic, patristic, or scholastic times they inevitably do 
to-day ; and statements which passed comparatively un- 
challenged in pre-evolution days find themselves now in an 
atmosphere quick with eager questionings. In the larger, 
wider intellectual world of to-day these mementoes of man's 
mental past startle the reader. If he is presented with a 
narrative of the life and teaching of One "in whom all the 
fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily," he rightly asks for 
credentials which would never have occurred to a Paul or a 
Plutarch. And yet of that One who came to be the inex- 
haustible and final revelation of the infinite God nay, who 
was Himself " Very God of Very God " we have only these 
meagre, these elusive and tantalising reports. This is enough, 
I submit, to justify the serious disquietude of the modern mind 
on this part of the New Testament problem. 

There are, however, other aspects of the same problem 
which the widened horizons of the modern world compel us 
to recognise. Possession by evil spirits was a form of belief 
natural to the culture-level at which the Jews of Jesus' day 
stood. They believed that these evil spirits entered into the 
human organism, and that their presence was the cause of 
physical and mental derangements. Jesus seems to have 
shared these opinions. Even more embarrassing to the 
modern mind is His apparent acquiescence in the popular 
belief that they could be expelled by exorcism, and that He 
Himself practised the art so effectually that it has maintained 
its place in the Christian Church to this day. Then again, 
the world has outlasted the anticipations of its duration which 
coloured at least the later phases of the Galilean idyll, and 
which impart a sombre tinge to the whole circle of Apostolic 
and Apocalyptic thought. Every day on the brink of opened 
graves we still repeat stately and solemn words which were 
written when the world was supposed to be hurrying to its 
catastrophic close. But the prophets of dissolution are dead, 
and still the old world spins its way "down the ringing 
grooves of change." And even as it has belied New Testa- 



360 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

ment beliefs as to its speedy end, so also it has belied the 
beliefs of the same volume as to its beginning. Mankind did 
not begin with a perfect Adam. Womankind did not emerge 
from the extracted rib of the first man. Suffering did not 
enter into the world, nor did the tragedy of death cast its 
dark shadow on humanity as the result of "man's first dis- 
obedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree," partaken in an 
idyllic Eden in the morning of time. These are fairy tales, 
and they have " faded into the light of common day." But 
they have left their mark on, even if they have not largely 
shaped, gospel and epistle. In a society which has done with 
fairy tales as to its own origin we have to ask : What are 
we to make of a New Testament which is said to be the last 
word of knowledge on the tremendous questions of life and 
destiny, and which yet lends its sanction to these fables of 
the morning ? The writer of the great " Quadrilateral " 
epistles shared these views. If the narrative is to be trusted, 
Jesus himself accepted many of them. And the stupendous 
claims made on His behalf by modern Evangelicals compel 
me to put the question : Are these fables things which we 
should expect from One represented to be " the Desire of all 
Nations, the Crown and Essence of Humanity, the Saviour of 
the World " ? 

Man, however, has other interests than those of religion. 
From the dawn of intelligence he has observed the world in 
which he finds himself, and gradually he has come to realise 
that some reasoned theory of it and its forces is a necessity of 
his nature. Science is the outcome of this craving for know- 
ledge. Through the aeons of his evolving history he has been 
haunted by an ideal, other and fairer than the actual around 
him. He has felt an imperious necessity to express these 
haunting visions, and Art has grown out of his efforts. He 
early found himself one of a group. Father and mother, 
sister, brother, wife, and children were around him. Outside 
his own group were other groups similarly related, and to 
these he had to adjust himself in some rude order. Here was 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 361 

ic beginning of political institutions, and advancing civilisa- 
tion has meant the slow adaptation of these institutions to a 
gradually expanding consciousness of social needs and order. 
I cannot further develop these points. But, in view of the 
claims with which I am dealing, I must ask : Can we con- 
ceive of Jesus believing in and understanding the Copernican 
system or following the reasonings of Newton ? Is it possible 
to think of Him following the dialectic of Aristotle or enter- 
ing into the enjoyment of the art of Pheidias ? Political 
science is a necessity of civilisation. But what proof is there 
in the evidence before us that Jesus had any conception of 
society as the product of human reason dealing with the facts 
of associated experience? If Jesus was man only, these 
questions are irrelevant. But if He was God, they raise, for 
me, an insoluble difficulty. 

Jesus Christ, we are told, is the Universal King. In this 
phrase, Jesus and Christ have become identified. Jesus 
imparts to the Christ His own historicity and character ; 
Christ assimilates Jesus. The two make one Person. The 
worlds of science and of art wait on His inspiration. Principal 
Fairbairn informs us, in words already quoted, that all the 
highest activities of the race receive their inspiration from 
Him : He is the origin and fount of all our thinking and 
doing ; His Person co-ordinates the otherwise aimless impulses 
of humanity ; He alone gives meaning to philosophy, direction 
and purpose to history. This is the " discovery " which, 
Principal Fairbairn says, has been made in these recent years, 
and that not by any designed and meditated counsel on the 
part of representative spirits in these departments of human 
activity. Rather it is, that these have become conscious of 
what was the result of their unpremeditated and manifold 
labours, and through that awakened consciousness the 
" historical Christ " has come to His own. The throne of the 
universe is no longer vacant. On it sits the crowned King 
of men, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for 
ever " ; and all the saints, sages, poets, and artists of all the 



TIIK HIBBKKT JOURNAL 

earth and all the ages are bidden "to lay their trophies at 
His feet and crown Him Lord of all." 

Yet when we look carefully at. the achiev rmnifs of the 
human mind we speedily become aware that without the aid 
of a continuous miracle the suppositions of this theory could 
not .be complied with. Humanity had achieved much before 
Jesus was born. If He alone is the inspiration ;md energising 
life of humanity, it is pertinent to ask how came we to 
have religions, literatures, art, sciences, philosophies, polities, 
and industries, all the contents of many-sided civilisations, 
thousands of years before He was born? 

We know too that claims similar to these have been put 
forward on behalf of other Saviour-Gods among all the great 
races of the past. Every type of civilisation has had its 
Saviour-God. The believers in these knew no world outside 
their own, and they fondly yet, sincerely and earnestly believed 
that the Saviour-God who had done so much for them was 
able to save to the uttermost. And, truth to say, when I)r 
rail-bairn and his disciples come to scrutinise the claims and 
characters of the Saviour-Gods of other religions they make 
very short work of the evidence of miracle and history with 
which such claims are associated. They apply to them the 
canons by which the children of this scientific age of the West 
judge of evidence, and the claims vanish at the touch of that 
Ithuricl spear. Jesus knew nothing of the world of Greek 
thought. There is no proof that He was aware of thai great 
and real religious reconstruction which found expression in the 
drama of /Ksehylus, or of those rcachings after a deeper 
spiritual realism breathing through the " Mysteries " of later 
(.reck and Itoman thought,. Had He been acquainted with 
the writings of Plato, what, marvellous confirmations of His 
own highest teachings would He not have found in them '( Is 
it conceivable that if he had known of Socrates and Pericles 
He would have dismissed them to outer darkness as mere 
heathens '( 'The vast and hoary religious systems of flic 
farther Kasl lay outside- His range of vision ; their greal saints 



.IKS US OH CHHIST' ;t<; 

were wholly unknown to Him. His world, on the evidence 

before us, was that of Palestine, its problems those of ( Galilee 
and Jerusalem, and its literatim 1 that of bis own nation. 

If from the realm of knowledge we pass l.o that of morals, 
we meet with sayings attributed to Jesus which raise disturb 
ing reflections. Matthew's version of the Sermon on the 
Mount is regarded as the high-water mark of Christ ian ethics. 

Yet if we are to regard these " sayings " as regulative words 

for the guidance of personal character or social order we 
cannot help being embarrassed. Almsgiving implies a failure 
of social justice. Hut the "sayings contain no recognition of 
that, now widely accepted fact; while the prohibition to have 
any regard to rewards from men does not apply l.o the " leather 
which seeth in secret," whose reward will begixen "openly" 
and may be, apparently, expected. No condemnation is 
passed on the harsh and cruel law of debtor and creditor, nor 
would efforts for legal reform find any encouragement from 
the words attributed to the Master here. ( )n non resistance 
and oath-Taking the rule allnbuled l.o Jesus is absolute. Yet, 
as a. whole, Christendom has openly violated it throughout its 
history. His most distinguished followers, popes and bishops, 
have waged wars and consecrated battleships; and the ex 
islcnce of Christian armies proves that Jesus has been unable 
to get His own followers l.o obey His rule. His leaching on 
divorce 1 recognises the husband's right to accuse, judge, 
condemn, and dismiss the wife ; while the wife, having no 
such rights as against, her husband or ex-en over her own 
children, is left the helpless victim of the husbands caprice. 
There is no recognition of adultery on the part of the husband 
as a ground for divorce! which the wile might, urge, while tin- 
right of the husband to decide these matters himself without 
reference; to any constituted law courts strikes the modem 

1 M.il I,., <-. xix., vv. .'{ f) ; M/irk, c. x., vv. 11-12; Luke, c. xv., v. I H. 
Karly llc|)rr w pr;icl ice ;r, l.o in.irn.i"< .md divorce w:r; pioh.iMy '.Naped |>y 
Arab cir.l.om. I )< ul economy introduced a milder pi.iehc., ;md in M;d.i< In 
f:iirrr l.rcal mcnl. |o I. lie wile i . iirj-ed. |', u l I .Im HI." lioiil. ItiMiral lime;. I I,, nj,dll, 
dl I, lie wife l.o :;ue for divorce wa:; not, t eeo;. ni :, d. 



3(54 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

mind as callous and iniquitous to the last degree. The teach- 
ing is governed throughout by an admission of the iniquitous 
principle of sex -inferiority as against woman, and let it be 
remembered this principle has inflicted infinite suffering on 
half of the human race. Yet Jesus sanctions this sex-sub- 
ordination, and His ideas rule Christendom to this day. 
English law has now decreed that divorced persons may 
legitimately re-marry, and in this particular it has presumed 
to improve on the ethics of Jesus as to the marriage relation- 
ship. We are awaking, somewhat slowly it is true, but still 
awaking, to the enormous iniquity involved in this sex- 
inferiority ; and the measure of our awaking is the measure 
of our departure from this part of the Sermon on the 
Mount. 

Provident regard for the future is utterly condemned. 
" Take no thought for the morrow " is an absolute injunction. 
But all our Insurance Societies are avowedly founded on the 
opposite of this. Friendly, Co-operative, and Trade Union 
Societies are organised on the principle condemned in this 
sermon, and Christian governments prepare their national 
budgets at least twelve months in advance. The principle of 
some of these instructions may have its value as an ideal. But 
as regulative ideas for the government of personal conduct and 
associated life they have been useless and they have been 
mischievous. 

Even more mischievous has been the sanction which 
persecution has drawn from Jesus' reported attitude to 
possession by evil spirits. As I am here dealing with ethical 
limitations, I must return to this subject and must press the 
question : Why did Jesus permit people to believe that evil 
spirits were the cause of disease, and that He could and did 
exorcise them ? 

It is certain that He was mistaken alike in His diagnosis 
and in His remedy, and the mistake becomes tragical when we 
remember that His example has been made to justify some of 
the most atrocious cruelties in history. If He did not know 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 365 

that possession by evil spirits as understood by His country- 
men was an error, then His knowledge was at fault. If He 
did know, and also knew the use that would be made of His 
example for more than a thousand years after His death, then 
His acquiescence shows a moral limitation more embarrassing 
than the intellectual one. Dr Fairbairn, in a perfect tour de 
force of intellectual subtlety, argues that Christ had limita- 
tions of knowledge. Writing of this in Christ in Modern 
Theology (p. 353), he says: 

" If He knows as God while He speaks as man, then His speech is not true 
to His knowledge, and within Him a bewildering struggle must ever proceed 
to speak as He seems and not as He is." 

' ' If He had such knowledge, how could He remain silent as He faced human 
ignorance and saw reason wearied with the burden of all its unintelligible 
mysteries ? If men could believe that once there lived on this earth One who 
had all the knowledge of God yet declined to turn any part of it into science 
for man, would they not feel their faith in His goodness taxed beyond 
endurance ?" 

Let us apply these thoughts to the case of possession by 
evil spirits. It will be noticed that Dr Fairbairn speaks of 
Christ, but I may take it that Jesus is meant. Mark reports 
(i. 23-26) : 

" And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit ; and he 
cried out, saying, Let us alone ; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of 
Nazareth ? Art thou come to destroy us ? I know thee who thou art, the 
Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and 
come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with 
a loud voice, he came out of him." 

Here is acquiescence in the animistic theory of disease, and 
an exercise of exorcism in which the people apparently 
thoroughly believed. Now I ask, Did Jesus "know as 
God " and " speak as man " in this instance ? If He was God, 
He must have known the people's opinion was an error, and 
an error too the theory that He had cast an evil spirit out of 
this man. What are we to think of God, who permits such 
things and becomes a party to this exorcism ? If He did not 
know that this was an error, then His knowledge was at fault, 
and what are we to think of a God with limited knowledge ? 
Dr Fairbairn and his followers admit these limitations of 



366 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

knowledge while yet claiming that this admittedly limited 
Personality was at the same time " Very God of Very God." 
These, however, are not merely intellectual limitations. There 
are also ethical limitations involved, and they touch on the 
theory of sinlessness. In the case before us Jesus permitted 
the people to believe that which was not true. 

If He was God, He knew that their belief in obsession was 
an error ; He must have known that after ages would quote 
His example as sanction for superstition and cruelty. We are 
therefore driven to the conclusion that " One who had all the 
knowledge of God declined to turn any part of it into science 
for man " in this instance, and thus allowed humanity to drift 
for more than a thousand years through the night of ignorance 
and cruelty. In a mere man this ethical limitation would be a 
sin. Is it otherwise in One who is said to be God ? 

These considerations seem to prove that modern Evan- 
gelicals, many of the " New Theologians," and not a few 
conservative Unitarians are in difficulties with their idea of 
Jesus Christ. Jesus limits and localises Christ ; Christ extin- 
guishes Jesus. Dr Fairbairn tells us (Christ in Modern 
Theology, p. 352) that " the terms under which Christ lived 
His life were those of our common non-miraculous humanity. 
We know no other. To be perfect and whole man must 
mean that as regards whatever is proper to manhood He is 
man and not something else." But it presently appears that 
He is something else, for though (Christ in Modern 
Theology, p. 355) "the normal manhood has its home in 
Judaea and its history written by the Evangelists," " the super- 
natural Person has no home, lives through all time, acts 
on and in all mankind." To me this seems "to say and 
straight unsay " in the same breath, and makes me feel that 
in theology English words do not convey their common 
meaning. Principal Griffith Jones, too, writes of Jesus Christ : 
"He Himself was the subject of a spiritual evolution" (The 
Ascent through Christ, p. 332). I am not sure that I know 
what a spiritual evolution is, but perhaps I put no strain on 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 367 

the word when I say that it implies the passage from a less 
developed to a more developed state. If so, there was a 
moment when Jesus Christ was less than God, and a subse- 
quent moment when he was more of God. But this implies 
imperfection and limitation, with a gradual emergence from 
their shadows, and I must admit that I can attach no mean- 
ing to a limited God emerging slowly from imperfection and 
limitation. Nor is that all. Does " spiritual evolution " 
imply that the full and perfect type lies at the beginning of 
the process? As usually understood, an evolutionary pro- 
cess starts from an undeveloped cell, and by the pressure of 
environing forces reaches the more fully developed stage. 
"Spiritual evolution" reverses this process. It places the 
developed stage the " Christ " at the beginning, and two 
thousand years of evolution have only secured us partial 
realisations of what the Christ was at the start. And yet it 
is this same Christ who is continually growing. 

Dr Percy Gardner, in A Historic View of the New 
Testament, Lecture III., writes quite frankly : 

" The more closely we examine the documents of early Christianity, the 
more fully do we acquiesce in the dictum of Dr Edersheim that the materials 
for a life of Jesus in any objective sense do not exist. It will probably always 
remain an impossibility to set forth even a brief narrative of the Founder's 
life which history can accept as demonstrated fact. Even the chronological 
skeleton of such a life cannot be sketched with certainty." 

" I endeavour in these lectures to observe a distinction very conducive to 
clearness of thought. In speaking of the earthly life of the Master, I call 
Him, with the Evangelists, Jesus ; in speaking of the exalted Head of the 
Christian Society, I use with Paul the term Christ. In cases where the 
meaning is between these two, the phrase Jesus Christ is applicable." 

But the eminent scholars with whom I am dealing habitu- 
ally quote words and actions attributed to Jesus and apply 
them to Christ. They thus gain for the mystical and spiritual 
Christ that objectivity which, assuming His historicity, belongs 
properly only to Jesus. This process seems to me wholly 
illegitimate. I want to put this matter quite as clearly and 
yet as reverently as I can, for it is the very heart of the 
disturbance which the modern mind feels in presence of the 



368 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

enormous claims made on behalf of Jesus. If Jesus was one 
of, or if He even was Himself, the highest and best in " the 
goodly fellowship of the prophets," then that He should be 
found subject to the intellectual, ethical, and emotional limita- 
tions of an Isaiah or an Amos would not diminish our obliga- 
tions to Him or abate by one iota our reverence for His 
character and work. But when we are told He is the universal 
King, the full and final perfection of humanity's reach, the 
Divine Exemplar, towards whose far off, infinitely distant 
perfection humanity must aspire and toil through the illimitable 
ages of the future, then the limitations of outlook, evasions 
of issues, disillusionments of experience shown in the Gospels 
assume an altogether different aspect. 

I will take the risk of much ridicule by saying frankly that 
the " historical Christ," as used by the apologists, is a phrase 
which embarrasses me. If it means an enriching and expand- 
ing " Ideal " to which history bears its witness, and from the 
hope inspired by which humanity may draw encouragement 
and strength in its conflict with ignorance and wrong, I, for 
one, will subscribe myself a believer. I admit the " Ideal " 
has had a history, and that in this sense it may well be 
described as historical. But I do not think this is at all what 
the eminent scholars I have been dealing with mean. They 
habitually quote as divinely decisive, words and actions attri- 
buted to Jesus of Nazareth. This conveys to me the impression 
that they believe Jesus was God. Yet almost every chapter of 
the Gospels bears testimony to the limitations within which 
Jesus lived and wrought. And though the physical limitations 
are by now freely admitted even by conservative scholars, the 
political, economic, social, intellectual, and ethical limitations 
are no less apparent. Dr Drummond tells us that the Divine 
Thought was "God Himself passing into self-manifestation." 
But when the position is even thus stated it compels us to ask, 
Did the " Divine Thought " give us the passages about woman 
and her treatment reported in that " Sermon " which is the 
admitted bed-rock of Christian ethics ? Did " God Himself" 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 369 

permit people to believe that exorcism was successfully per- 
formed ? If so, there was Divine sanction given to the practice 
of the art through the Christian centuries, to its retention to 
this day by the Catholic Church, and to the nameless barbarities 
inflicted on the most helpless of mankind through the long 
night of the " ages of faith." Even Dr J. Estlin Carpenter 
tells us, " He (Jesus) was obliged to use the forms of thought 
provided by his age, and they were inadequate to the greatness 
of his ideas. His principles far transcended the moulds which 
the time provided " ( The First Three Gospels, p. 349, People's 
Edition). But did Jesus' proclamation of the Fatherhood of 
God " far transcend " what may be found in many a passage of 
Seneca ? What was there in " the forms of thought provided 
by his age" to prevent Him from condemning the fiscal 
oppressions and land monopolies of His time ? The Hebrew 
prophets before Him had done so in no measured speech. 
Why did He not do so ? Are we to account for this silence 
on the plea urged by a recent anonymous but able writer 
( The Creed of Buddha) for the silence of the Indian saint ? 

Though much poetry has been expended upon it, I cannot 
understand what is meant by an " Imperfect God." Nor do 
I find any real assistance when homely English is exchanged 
for ambitious Greek, and scholars speak of a " Kenosis " and 
of a " Kenotic theory " involving real limitations in the Infinite 
and Omniscient God. The " emptying " of the Infinite God, 
whether in Greek or in English, is a process which conveys 
to me no intelligible meaning. Identifying Jesus with Christ, 
they make God a Being who is omnipotent, yet limited in 
power ; omniscient, yet defective in knowledge ; infinitely 
good, yet One who declines " to turn any part of His know- 
ledge as God into science for man." This seems to me to 
be language which stultifies itself. It would be an abuse 
of language to say that it deals with a mystery. It is flat 
contradiction. 

R. ROBERTS. 

BRADFORD. 
VOL. VII. No. 2. 24 



THE 

MESSAGE OF MODERN MATHEMATICS 
TO THEOLOGY. 



CASSIUS J. KEYSER, Ph.D., 

Adrain Professor of Mathematics, Columbia University, New York. 

IN the course of a recent l lecture dealing with Mathematics 
regarded as a distinctive type of thought and with its relations 
to other modes and forms of philosophic and scientific activity, 
I ventured to say : " I do not believe that the declined estate 
of Theology is destined to be permanent. The present is but 
an interregnum in her reign, and her fallen days will have an 
end. She has been deposed mainly because she has not seen 
fit to avail herself promptly and fully of the dispensations of 
advancing knowledge. The aims, however, of the ancient 
mistress are as high as ever, and when she shall have made 
good her present lack of modern education and learned to 
extend a generous and eager hospitality to modern light, she 
will reascend and will occupy with dignity as of yore an 
exalted place in the ascending scale of human interests and the 
esteem of enlightened men. And Mathematics, by the inmost 
character of her being, is specially qualified, I believe, to assist 
in the restoration." 

That judgment, if it be sound, indicates an extremely 
important office of Mathematics. My belief that it is sound, 

1 Mathematics, University Press, Columbia University, New York. 

370 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 371 

my conviction that mathematics, over and above her humbler 
role as a metrical and computatory art, over and above her 
unrivalled value as a standard of exactitude and as an instru- 
ment in every field of experimental and observational research, 
even beyond her justly famed disciplinary and emancipating 
power, releasing the faculties from the fickle dominion of sense 
by winning their allegiance to the things of the spirit, inuring 
them to the austerities of reason, the stern demands of rigorous 
thought, giving the mental enlargement, the peaceful per- 
spective, the poise and the elevation that come at length from 
continued contemplation of the universe under the aspects of 
the infinite and the eternal my conviction that above and 
beyond these services, which by common consent of the 
competent are peculiarly her own, Mathematics will yet further 
demonstrate her Human significance by the shedding of light, 
more and more copious as the years go by, on ultimate 
problems of Philosophy and Theology, is not a passing fancy 
or a momentary whim. Whether mistaken or not, it is at all 
events the product of growth, slowly come to maturity, 
steadily deepened and confirmed throughout more than a score 
of years devoted to the study and the teaching of the science, 
with an eye to ascertaining its rightful place in the hierarchy 
of Knowledges, and for the most part in an atmosphere quick 
with the mingled interests and liberalising presence of nearly 
every variety of academic and scientific life. 

Nevertheless I have to own that, by virtue of considerations 
without any bearing whatever on the merits of the subject, I 
enter on the present undertaking only after long hesitation 
and with no little misgiving. For how shall one, it may be 
asked, who is no theologian, contrive to address himself to a 
question of Theology, and that in terms of Mathematics, 
acceptably to readers who in their turn may promptly protest 
that they are not mathematicians? Yet I believe that a 
little reflection will readily reduce the immediate shock of 
the seeming double absurdity, and will discover, at least 
in the possibilities of the enterprise, a sufficient measure 



372 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of justification. I am indeed far from being a theologian, 
and can assert no other title to be heard in theological 
discussion than such a very defective one as may be derived 
from having, in my earlier and more expectant years, 
listened attentively to some hundreds of sermons, from 
having diligently read a few theological works, and from 
having reflected a little, not without some temperamental 
interest in the themes but all too desultorily, upon the great 
questions that so persistently attend the recurrent sense of the 
world's mystery and wait upon the leisure hour and the pensive 
mood. It must be conceded, too, that the subject does not 
admit of acceptable presentation to one who is not willing to 
bring to its consideration a little patience and penetration, and 
such measure, I do not say of mathematical technique but of 
mathematical spirit, as may properly be regarded as an essential 
qualification for aspiring to acquaintanceship with certain of 
the higher achievements of modern thought. That there are 
many who, albeit they are not familiar with the technique of 
mathematics nor even with the more accessible of the world- 
illuming concepts that have come to the science in recent 
times, possess nevertheless the requisite spirit, patience, and 
penetration, I do not doubt. Finally, if 1 shall not be able, 
even with their co-operation, to bear the contemplated message 
home to the understanding, and yet may hope to show the 
possibility of such a service and be the means of inciting some 
one who is both theologian and mathematician to render it to 
those who are neither, I am well prepared to count the lesser 
privilege a happy fortune. 

As a precaution against the bare possibility of creating, 
however unwittingly, and therefore of having to disappoint, 
over-sanguine expectations, I hope it is unnecessary to dis- 
claim the slightest intention of attempting to furnish anything 
like a universal resolvent for theological difficulties. Certain 
questions concerning the reality of God, concerning the ulti- 
mate consistence of the attributes commonly ascribed to such 
a Being, questions of Evil, of Freedom, of Immortality, and 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 373 

of other great matters that so easily triumphed over the 
sanguine dialectic of the Ancient World and contrived to 
baffle with equal ease the subtle and persistent genius of the 
Middle Age, not even the adventurous spirit of Modern 
Mathesis and Modern Science may confidently assail. One 
need not have " passed on life's highway the stone that marks 
the highest point " ere he learns to be content with less, much 
less, than the full measure of intellectual conquest dreamed of 
in youth. Not complete solutions, not final answers to the 
deepest questionings of the spirit, but ever-increasing illumina- 
tion of them, felt accessions to the sustaining sense of their 
significance, the acquisition of fresh view -points and new 
perspectives, the advancement, in a word, and multiplication 
of insight and vision such are the reasonable expectations, 
the precious fruits, the ample rewards of serious Speculation. 

The answer of Laplace to Napoleon's question, why he 
had not in his Mecanique Celeste mentioned the name of God, 
is familiar to all : " Sir, I had no need of that hypothesis." 
Not so generally known, I believe, but equally brilliant, was 
the instant response of Lagrange on hearing from the Emperor 
prompt report of the memorable conversation : " Nevertheless 
that is an hypothesis that accounts for many things." 

Nothing is easier than to miss the point of these immortal 
sayings, so mutually antagonistic do they seem at first in the 
respects alike of temper and of sense, so resembling the sudden 
sabre-thrust and counter-thrust of battle. Yet they do not 
involve even the slightest element of disagreement. Neither of 
them affirms or implies denial of the assertion or of the implica- 
tions of the other. Their semblance of mutual opposition is 
pure illusion, due to the dramatic character of the situation and 
a certain contrast and dissonance of sound. It entirely dis- 
appears on closer examination, and the two speeches stand 
forth in their proper character as felicitous statements of fact, 
being at the same time in point of form clear tokens of the 
scientific temper common to their immortal authors. Is there, 
then, in Laplace's mot no ground for imputing irreverence ? 



374 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

And is there none in that of Lagrange for the ascription to 
it of immanent piety ? None whatever. It would be foolish 
to assert that the scientific and religious tempers are identical, 
or that the presence of one of them implies that of the other. 
It may be that the distinction between them is radical and 
that they are essentially independent. But, as endowments of 
spirit, they are not incompatible ; and everyone who will may 
know that they do in fact often coexist, not only in ordinary 
men, but as the examples of a Leonardo da Vinci, a Pascal, 
a Spinoza, a Riemann, a Newton sufficiently show in the 
most illustrious personalities as well. Whether such a 
union was actually realised in either or neither or both of 
the renowned savants whose words are here under considera- 
tion, it is aside from my present purpose to inquire. Suffice 
it to point out that, as an obvious matter of sound sense and 
logic, any principle of criticism or interpretation that might 
be invoked or invented to justify the imputation of irreverence, 
impiety, or lack of veneration in the dictum of Laplace, must 
equally avail to discover in that of Lagrange corresponding 
want of scientific temper, and such a verdict, as everyone 
knows, would be in the teeth of fact. It is easy to imagine 
that Laplace, at the close of his immortal work, might, like 
Newton, have discharged for a time the mood essential to its 
production, given himself to leisured contemplation of the 
wondrous cosmic visions gained in years of analytic toil, and 
that, thus receptively musing on the mighty mechanism of the 
stellar universe its unfathomable deeps, the immeasurable 
energies of swift-revolving worlds of flame, the all-pervasive 
order, the silent reign throughout of majestic law he might 
have felt a reverent sense of admiration akin to religious awe, 
and again like Newton have owned in words that such 
unity and perfection betoken the dominion of a Supreme 
Ruler and Lord of all. Had he thus chosen to signalise 
the triumphant end of many years of scientific labour by 
some expression of belief in a divine source and ruler of a 
universe whose profounder beauties he had been enabled to 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY ;375 

behold and disclose, the testimony could not but seem fitting 
to everyone, and would be especially grateful to those fortunate 
souls who see in every great display of power a witness to 
omnipotence, in every striking manifestation of natural law 
an evidence of divine decree, in every nobler scene of beauty 
a token of divine perfection. But and this is the important 
point such an expression of belief, however profound and 
genuine, however creditable to the great astronomer in his 
character as a man, would not have been in any sense a 
constituent of the Mecanique Celeste, neither a postulate nor 
a theorem, no integrant part whatever of the great description, 
but only an after-effect, an epiphenomenon, a note of venera- 
tion evoked by subsequent recall and contemplation of the 
celestial scene described. Nor could such a proclamation, 
whether made at the beginning, in mid-course, or after the 
end of the work, have added a jot to its validity or its value 
as a work of science. No defect of fact or of logic could have 
been thus avoided, palliated, or cured, and no merit improved. 
Had some soldier of Euclid's time demanded of the illustrious 
geometrician why he had not in the Elements made mention 
of God, doubtless the wit provoked but yesterday by the 
challenge of Napoleon's question had framed itself in Greek 
two thousand years before. Or does anyone imagine that 
that imperishable work stateliest among the edifices upreared 
by the scientific genius of the ancient world could have 
been improved by adding to its underlying postulates the 
statement, There is a God? If one asks, for example, why 
planetary paths are elliptic, or why the earth is flattened at 
the poles, and receives for answer that there is a God and He 
so wills, the answer may indeed be quite correct, yet one who 
should seriously offer it as scientific would seem less logical 
than pathological, less like a Newton, Laplace, or Lagrange 
than like a fool. The resolute attempt of Science to explain 
the universe in terms of Mechanics cannot be furthered by the 
postulation of a God ; it would be abandoned thereby ; for 
one thing is certain : God, if God there be, is no machine. 



376 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

And so Laplace's mot was more than justified : not only had 
he " no need of that hypothesis," but, his problem being one 
of mechanics, he could not, without stultifying himself, have 
even pretended to use it. 

" Nevertheless that is an hypothesis that accounts for many 
things," and one of these whether it may be otherwise ex- 
plained or not is the fact that, while Science herself, the 
pulley-lever kind, by the avowed terms and definition of her 
aim and undertaking, is, once for all and finally, atheistic, 
Scientific Man is not. For many a one, even the hardiest, of 
the kind unless indeed cut off before the mellowing touch 
of pensive years can ripen Knowledge into Wisdom comes 
sooner or later to perceive, at all events to feel, that the 
mechanistic hypothesis, fruitful and wide-reaching as it is, yet 
cannot embrace the whole of life, can give no adequate account 
of the finer elements of "man's unconquerable mind," its 
radiance and joy, its conscience and love, its holy aspirations, 
holds out no promise to spiritual yearnings, makes no answer 
to the deepest appeals of the human soul ; and so, under the 
chastening influences of disappointment, increasingly awake to 
the subtler claims, the higher appetences, of his being, he 
comes, reluctantly perhaps, slowly it may be and late in life, 
to reconsider and rectify his earlier estimates, and, from the 
doubt that is "hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea," 
craves and seeks relief, finding it at length, if not in faith, at 
least in something akin thereto a nascent sense of a sympa- 
thising consciousness beyond his own. of subtle intimations of 
an all-pervasive presence of a living Spirit. 

It is not, however, my primary purpose to show that, 
owing to its essential nature, the postulate of a God can find 
no place among the principles of an enterprise whose aim is a 
thorough-going explanation of the universe in mechanical 
terms, nor to argue at length that that high emprise is destined 
to fail for the reason, among others, that one of the phenomena 
to be explained is the felt promise in an ideal eternally at war 
with the quality of the explanation the passionate longing, I 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 377 

mean, for release from the fixity of mechanism ; aspiration to 
a spiritual freedom infinitely above and beyond every shuttle- 
cock conception of the universe. 

Important as are the quoted affirmations of Laplace and 
Lagrange, the weight of their significance lies, not in the 
differing declarations as such, but in their common point of 
view, in what neither one asserts but both of them imply, 
namely, that God is an hypothesis. Far be it from me to 
contend that God is that and nothing more. For not every 
logos is rational. And doubtless Theology, broadly conceived 
in accordance with its etymological sense, is vastly less and 
vastly more than scientific, not confined to deductive pro- 
cesses and theorematic content, but embracing a measureless 
wealth of emotional expression as well, the rapturous eloquence 
of prophet and seer, the songs and prayers of saints and 
martyrs, religious poetry and the voice of sacred music all 
discourse of holy things the silent testimony, too, of the 
cathedral church with its solemn pictures and statuary in a 
word, the sacred literature and sacred art of more than the 
Western World. Neither do I deny that, so far from being a 
mere hypothesis, God may be a real being whose reality is, at 
times, to persons of a certain temperament, an immediate 
object of a genuine kind of knowledge, not only such know- 
ledge as the mystic asseverates that he possesses, but also a 
kind of certitude that though it is, like the mystic's, ineffable 
-yet is possible to the natural intellect the kind of certitude, 
for example, that one may have of purposefulness of the 
universe who has repeatedly and seriously sought to deny it 
that quality, not merely in words, which is easy, but in a vivid 
sense (hard to gain) of the denial's essential meaning, and who, 
having won that sense, perhaps a hundred times in the course 
of thirty years, has each time lost it immediately, like the pass- 
ing shadow of a flitting bird, a mid-day moment's dream of 
darkness at once dissolved in the light, a cut in consciousness 
instantly closed like a cleft in a sea : the denial of purpose being 
no sooner achieved in feeling than it has been completely over- 



378 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

whelmed by the inrushing flood of the query : What then is it 
for ? as if some suddenly roused instinct, vital to Intelligence, 
had leaped to the defence of its threatened integrity and life. 

But, after all such claims have been freely and fully 
allowed, the fact is clear that, for Theology regarded as a 
purely scientific activity, addressing itself to the average or 
standard intellect, appealing to the normal understanding, 
abiding by the accepted rules of evidence and argumentation, 
God is an hypothesis and nothing more. For the rapt vision 
of the seer, faith's evidence of things not seen, the mystic's 
immediate sense of divine communion, the above-mentioned 
certitude of cosmic purposefulness, all of these and such as 
these being by nature personal, private, ineffable, incommuni- 
cable experiences, are none of them forms of scientific know- 
ledge ; because scientific knowledge always is, potentially at 
least, impersonal, public, effable, communicable, sharply dis- 
criminated from other varieties of knowledge by its social 
character, by its transmissibility from mind to mind. 

Here, then, we are face to face with the naked theme of 
our meditation : the supreme assumption of the human in- 
tellect its last refuge the Hypothesis, namely, of a being 
called God. How shall we frame it in speech ? How describe 
the august Being it seeks to represent? Appeal to the 
greatest physical philosopher of all time calls forth from the 
author of the Principia and inventor of the Calculus the terse 
reply : " A Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect." Ask 
him whose genius it was that conceived and produced the 
indissoluble alliance between the doctrines of Number and 
Space, brought together the sundered hemispheres of apodictic 
thought and thus created the world of Analytic Geometry. 
" Infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, all-knowing, all- 
powerful" such are the resounding terms of Descartes' 
response. Similarly impressive the penetrating characterisa- 
tion heard on turning to the " God-intoxicated " philosopher 
of Amsterdam : " Absolutely infinite, consisting of infinite 
attributes, each expressing eternal and infinite essentiality." 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 379 

These familiar citations will serve to remind the reader of the 
best efforts of human thought to give adequate formulation 
to the hypothesis of God. As an hypothesis it stands alone. 
The hypotheses that we meet elsewhere, as the nebular, the 
corpuscular, the ionic, the atomic, the molecular, the hypo- 
theses of a space-pervading aether, of universal gravitation, 
of organic evolution, of conservation of energy and of mass, 
all such have in common a certain mark which that one does 
not possess, namely, they divide in order to conquer, each of 
them is restricted to some fragment of reality, confined to a 
field that is bounded, while on the contrary the hypothesis of 
God is distinguished by the fact that it alone attempts to span 
and bind the Whole. The all-embracing questions are : 
What does it mean ? What is it worth ? The latter question 
I do not here propound, but shall address myself to the former 
alone, attempting no estimate of worth except incidentally and 
in so far as judgment of value naturally accompanies deter- 
mination of sense. 

" The light of human minds," says Hobbes, " is perspicuous 
words, but by exact definitions first snuffed and purged from 
ambiguity." I ask : what, if any, precise meaning, available 
for the purposes of discourse that aspires or pretends to rigour, 
may be assigned to the fundamental adjectives of theological 
terminology ? Infinite, Eternal, Omnipotent, Omniscient, 
Omnipresent, and the rest : are these mighty terms, these vast 
resounding voices from the deeps of Feeling, destined to none 
but emotional significance ? Are they to be confined for ever 
to the impulsatory offices of Poetry and Prayer? Or is it 
possible to define them sharply as concepts, to confer upon 
them the character of scientific notions, and thus, while 
preserving their power to express emotion and energise life, 
make them sources of light as well ? I hold that, by virtue 
of certain modern developments in Mathematics, such an 
achievement is become possible, and I shall proceed at once, 
in the simplest terms at my command, to point out what 
appears to me the way to at least a partial vindication of the 



380 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

claim. To that end I bespeak the generous co-operation of 
the reader's patience and attention, more especially so, as the 
initial considerations to be adduced cannot but seem dreary 
and dull, resembling more the forbidding approach to an arid 
plain than an entrance to a valley of fruits. 

No one can have failed to observe that among the pro- 
perties of the Being hypothetised by Theology there is one 
that has the distinction of appearing both explicitly and 
implicitly, of being at the same time co-ordinate with the 
other properties and involved in each of them. That pre- 
eminent property, as I scarcely need point out, is the attribute 
of Infinity. If this central term, about which the self-styled 
" queen of all the sciences" has been eloquently discoursing 
for thousands of years without giving it a single definition 
available for scientific use, can be completely shorn of its 
indetermination, and thus brought at length under the 
dominion of Logic, the like submission of the related terms 
will readily follow, and the long-coveted, long-awaited ad- 
vancement of Theology from the position of a merely specu- 
lative philosophy to the rank of a genuine science will have 
been begun. Other means to that high desideratum I can 
imagine none. Fortunately, it so happens that there is not 
to be found in Science, not even in the domain of Mathematics 
the very home and fatherland of precision a single idea, 
notion, or concept that is more clearly or sharply defined than 
is the concept of Infinitude. And there strangely enough 
for nearly half a century it has in vain awaited appropriation 
by Theological thought. 

I shall present the concept by aid of two simplest examples 
drawn respectively from the doctrines of Number and Space. 
Imagine the surfaces of two concentric spheres, the surface l of 
the inner one white and named the silver sphere, the surface 
of the outer one yellow and called the golden sphere. Next 
imagine the sheaf (as it is called) of rays consisting of all the 

1 The terms " sphere " and u surface of sphere " are herein used as 
equivalent, in accordance with usage in higher geometry. 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 881 

straight lines that have their beginning at the centre of the 
spheres and thence extend outward indefinitely in every 
direction. It is plain that any ray, R, of the sheaf pierces the 
silver sphere in a point, say S 9 and the golden one in a point, 
say 6r. Calling S and G a pair of points, it is evident that, 
by considering all the rays of the sheaf, the points of the one 
sphere are paired with those of the other a unique and 
reciprocal, or one-to-one, correspondence being thus established 
between the points of the silver and of the golden sphere. We 
see at once that the number of points on the silver sphere, 
however small, is the same as the number of the points on the 
golden one, however large, and, moreover, that this number is 
precisely the same as that of the rays of the sheaf. Now 
conceive a curve red, if you like, for the sake of vividness 
to be drawn on the golden sphere and enclosing on it a region, 
', exactly equal in area to that of the silver sphere. The 
lumber of points in the region A is, of course, the same as 
ie number on the silver sphere, and is, therefore, the same 
the number on the golden one. But the points in the 
[ion A constitute only apart of the whole of the points on 
ie golden sphere. At once it is seen and the fact is of the 
rery utmost importance that we have here a part the 
isemble of points in the region A and a whole the ensemble 
>f points in the golden sphere such that the number of 
)ints constituting the part is precisely the same as the 
mmber of those constituting the whole. It is to be noted 
jfully and once for all that the equality subsists, not 
between the area of the region A and that of the golden 
sphere, but between two point collections, the part collection 
in the region A and the whole collection upon the sphere. 
By virtue of this equality of whole and part, the whole is 
said to be infinite, and it follows, of course, that the adjective 
applies to the equal part as well. We are now prepared to 
grasp easily and firmly the general definition of the concept J 

1 The terms "infinite" and its synonyms are employed in all that follows, 
not in their literary, but in their scientific sense. 



382 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of Infinitude : a collection, class, set, group, aggregate, 
ensemble, manifold, or multitude of elements be these points 
or passions, ions or ideas, relations or terms, quantities or 
qualities, tones of colour or shadings of sound, degrees of 
wisdom or goodness or power, or any other forms, or modes 
or determinations is infinite if and only if the collection, like 
the ensemble of points on a sphere, contains a part, or sub- 
collection, that is numerically equal to the whole. On the 
other hand, a collection is finite if and only if, like the col- 
lection of trees in yonder forest or that of the sands of the 
sea or that of the stars within the range of telescopic vision, 
it contains no part, or sub-collection of the same kind, 
numerically equal to the whole. Let not the reader be here 
deceived. He is not invited to a feast of mere opinion, but is 
asked to open his eyes and behold for himself. There stand 
the two concepts, absolutely clear ; and there, too, stand the 
validating facts, absolutely unmistakable. The latter indeed 
may be multiplied at will. Examples illustrating the concept 
of finitude are of course familiar to all, being forced upon the 
attention by the vulgar necessities of life. Those illustrating 
the concept of infinitude, though they are less familiar, yet 
abound in even greater profusion, being found in the great 
and the small, the remote and the near, in Number, in Space, 
in Time, in qualitative distinctions, in the realm of pure 
relation wherever the human intellect may penetrate if the 
inner eye be only disciplined to detect their omnipresence. 
Let us return for a moment to our image of the sheaf and 
the spheres. Consider those rays of the sheaf that pierce 
the points of the region A on the golden sphere. Let us call 
the group of these rays a bundle. It is evident that the 
number of rays of the bundle is the same as the number 
of the points of the region A ; this number, we have seen, 
is the same as the number of points of the sphere; and 
this, again, the same as the number of the rays of the sheaf; 
whence it follows that the bundle, though but part of 
the sheaf, is equal in number to the whole ; so that the sheaf 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 383 

and the bundle serve alike to exemplify again the notion of 
infinite manifolds. 

For a simplest example drawn from the inexhaustible 
resources of another field, consider the two sequences of 
integers : 

(W) 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ,, + !, 

(P) 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 2ft, 2(+ 1) 

By the series (W) of symbols I wish to call attention, not 
to that uncompleted row of marks itself, but to a certain 
definite invisible whole that the row suggests and serves to 
bring as an object before the mind, namely : the totality of the 
positive integers. On being confronted with the notion of 
this fundamental totality, at once so clear to thought and so 
baffling to imagination, many persons, especially the unin- 
itiated, become restive for a time. A little reflection, however, 
will dissipate any reasonable scepticism, and show that our 
footing here is solid rock. It is true indeed that, however 
many integers we may singly specify or imagine, there always 
remain more and more. It is also true that the hand cannot 
actually write nor the physical eye behold a set of symbols 
matching one-to-one all the integers composing the asserted 
totality, if such a thing there be. What of it ? Consider, for 
a moment, a familiar totality so obvious that none may question 
it the totality, I mean, of the points of a circle. As in the 
case of the integers, so here, too, it is impossible to think all 
the points singly or singly to specify or symbolise them all. 
Yet there they are not one now and then another but all of 
them at once, a totality persisting as such and unescapable. 
What is the secret ? The secret is that the totality is a con- 
ceptual thing, a thing for thought and not for sense or imagina- 
tion, a thing carved out by a law transcending the powers of 
step-by-step perception and depiction, a law of definition that 
selects out of the universe of thinkable things a set of them 
unambiguously the law, namely, that the things shall be 
points of a plane and be all of them equally distant from a 
point therein. So it is precisely with the totality of positive 



384 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

integers. It does not exist for sense or imagination, it exists 
for thought, deriving its character as a totality, its completeness 
and one-ness, from the completeness and one-ness of the selec- 
tive law defining it the law, namely, that besides any definite 
integer there is another greater than that by one. Hereby 
inclusion and exclusion are both of them decisive, instantaneous, 
complete ; and the things law-selected are bound and held 
together by the definition as by an encircling band. Is it yet 
objected that, if the integers be thought as arranged in a series, 
the latter extends beyond every assignable limit and is never 
completed ? The objection originates in confusion of thought, 
and I reply: (1) that such a series, though having no end, 
would not, therefore, be incomplete, for endlessness is as 
definite a character as that of having an end ; (2) that, though 
integer-symbols being spatial things may be arranged in 
a spatial series, integers themselves being never "naked 
to the visible eye" need not be thought as so arranged 
even if such an ordering were not strictly impossible; and 
(3) that the objection is decisively overthrown by the single 
consideration of its lying equally against regarding as a 
totality the points constituting, for example, an hyperbola, 
since each branch of the curve on which they lie extends 
outward and upward beyond every assignable bound. The 
fact is that it is precisely such sense-transcending totalities 
that constitute the essential subject-matter of rigorous 
thought, and to deny their validity would be to evacuate 
the Reason of all content and bar even the very possibility 
of Science. 

We may, then, with the utmost confidence in the soundness 
of our footing, resume the advance. Comparing the totality 
(W) of integers with the totality (P) of even integers, it is 
immediately evident that a unique and reciprocal correspondence 
subsists between the numbers of ( W) and those of (P), as indi- 
cated by the sequence of pairs : 

(T) 1, 2; 2, 4; 3, 6; 4, 8; . . . ; n, 2 ; n+1, 2(n+l); . . . . 

Note that the pairing is no creeping performance that never 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 385 

gets performed ; neither is it a lightning process, for this were 
as helpless before the task of pairing the totalities step by step 
as the pace of a snail. No, the pairing is a deed of law wrought 
instantaneously, without lapse of time. The law is : each 
number shall go with its double. And its effect is simultaneous 
with its enactment. To choose the law is to say : " Let the 
pairing be done " ; and behold ! it is done. It is only contem- 
plation of the deed and not the doing of it that requires time. 
There is possible a yet deeper view of the matter, namely, the 
static view. We may say, that is, that the integers as elements 
of the existing ideal world already stand at once in all sorts of 
possible interrelations, among them the relation in question, 
and that to choose the mentioned law of association in pairs is 
not indeed to enact that relation, for it subsisted before the 
choice, but is merely to select it from other relations in similar 
case in a word, to designate by a single act of will the pair- 
totality ( T) already existing prior to the designation. Which- 
ever view of the matter be taken and either is admissible for 
the purpose in hand it is clear that a one-to-one relation does 
subsist between the elements of ( W} and the elements of (P). 
The totalities are therefore equally rich in elements : the 
number of integers in the one is the same as that of the other. 
But every integer in (P) is an integer in ( JF), while ( W] has 
integers that are not in (P). Hence (P) is a part of which 
( W] is the whole ; and hence ( W] is an infinite collection and 
so is (P). 

It is needless here further to multiply examples. " These 
slight footprints suffice to enable a keen-searching mind to 
find out all the rest" no, not all, as the maddened poet 
sang, but enough and more. For to eyes once open the 
brood of the infinite is everywhere, the light of the great 
concept gleaming and glittering in every aspect of being. In 
the entire domain of Reality there is no conceivable manifold 
of things but either it contains or does not contain a part 
that, in the sense already defined, perfectly matches in 

elemental wealth and in dignity of structure the whole to 
VOL. VII. No. 2. 25 



386 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

which it belongs. By this potent principle, so simple indeed 
as to have eluded the eye of thought for thousands of years, 
the Universe of thinkable things is riven completely asunder. 
The cleavage, however, is not a spatial one, it is purely 
logical, and the two grand divisions the realm of the finite 
and the realm of the infinite marvellously interlocked, 
together constitute the dual abode of dual-natured man. 
The former is the domain of Practical Life ; it contains no 
magnitudes but man may measure them, as the rim of a 
continent, the speed of light, the volume of a star ; no 
multitudes but man may count them the coins in the coffer, 
the cattle in the field, the deeds of a hero, the years of an 
empire ; no series or room or manifold, no whole whatever, 
but is more than a match for its every part: the world of 
things that are finite is strictly as an island- world suspent 
in a sea. The other division the realm of infinite things 
that is the immersing sea, an ocean without bottom or surface 
or shore. It contains no totalities but such as are law- 
defined, never a whole of any kind that has not countless 
parts each matching it perfectly in respect of number, coequal 
with it in Machtigkeit as it is called, in potence or power, 
in complexity of structure, in dignity and wealth of Reality. 
This is the domain of the Reason, the dwelling-place of those 
universals of thought that so persistently haunted the soul 
of Fichte and attuned his faculties to an almost lyrical 
key of philosophic exposition ; here sense and imagination 
are transcended ; here and here alone are the objects of 
knowledge proper, for, as Poincare' has justly remarked 
of a multiplicity, unless it is infinite, a science is strictly 
impossible. 

" Granted," says one, " in itself what has been said is well 
enough. What of it ? Where, pray, is Deity ? I ask for 
bread and am given a stone: for a vision of God, and am 
invited to thread endless mazes of mathematics, to con- 
template the vast and dazzling splendours of number and 
space. Let it be done. What does it all avail ? 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 887 

"I heap up numbers enormous, 
Mountains of millions extend, 
I pile time up on time, 
World on world without end, 
And when I from the awful height 
Would a vision of Thee behold : 
The total sum of number's Might, 
Though multiplied a thousandfold, 
Is yet no part of Thee." ] 

The protest is temperamental. It is an unwitting con- 
fession : the familiar voice of Imagination proclaiming its 
natural inability to follow in the wake of Thought. Imagina- 
tion and Thought. It is the amazing failure, well-nigh 
universal, to distinguish between these powers that has 
permitted multitudes of thinkers, even so virile a one as 
Hobbes, to contend that what is infinite cannot be known. 
It is true indeed that whatsoever is infinite does transcend 
the photographic faculties of the intellect, but not the con- 
ceptual, not the logical. Ignorabimus is the surrendering cry 
of the Imagination. For Thought the Unknowable does not 
exist. I have made no promise of a " vision " of God. My 
aim, I repeat, is to rescue from indetermination and obscurity 
the terms of the hypothesis God, to give character and form 
to the vast amorphous shapes that waver there and shift in the 
fog and dusk of speculation, to convert the nebulous termin- 
ology into symbols of concepts, and thus in a measure to 
beget or to justify the hope that the shadowland of Theology 
may yet be invaded with conquering engines of Scientific light. 

And the heart of the enterprise is quickened by many a 
high consideration. How familiar the old despairing words : 
None but the infinite can comprehend the infinite ! How often 
they have been solemnly pronounced 2 in courts of philosophy 
and sunken in the soul like a leaden decree of fate, an un- 
appealable sentence of doom ! Where is the place, and where 

1 Haller, Ich haufe ungehaure Zahlen, etc., cited by Hegel in his Logik. 

2 To cite only the latest instance, we find Mr Frederic Harrison in his 
Philosophy of' Common Sense, p. 27, repeating the old cry in the form : " Does 
the Infinite Universe through Space conform to the modes of mind of the 
human mites of this planetary speck ? " 



388 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the time in the course of nearly two thousand years, that the 
voice of authority, from peasant priest to the Pope of Rome, 
has not laid them as an interdict on the intellects of men ? 
The maxim itself is true ; but false and pernicious the im- 
plication that man is a puny creature who should be for ever 
content to devote his flickering finite faculties, in meekness 
and fear and shame, to worship and adoration of majesty and 
might that he may never, without presumption and folly, 
even aspire to comprehend. For long, alas ! was the human 
soul destined to cower in the fearful night of that impious 
piety. But not for aye. Thanks to the invincible spirit of 
thought, Day is come at length, and it is ours to dwell in the 
morning. The sword of Mathesis has rent the veil asunder, 
stripped the pall from the consciousness of man, and there ! 
behold ! what the sudden apparition that startles his gaze ? 
Awful apocalypse, astounding revelation that he himself is 
infinite. Can it be a fact ? Or is it only a dream, a feverish 
fancy of his long-imprisoned mind ? It is a fact. No certi- 
tude of Science, none in Mathematics, is better ascertained. 
But how ? It is not merely an inference from universal dis- 
content with partial knowledge, not merely faith in the felt 
promise of the intellect's unquenchable passion to know the 
whole. Such evidence, old as the intellect itself, is not indeed 
to be despised, but it does not convince. It is rather a pro- 
phecy than a demonstration, a harbinger of proof than proof 
itself. No, it is not from such sources that the fact derives 
its certitude, but from two considerations that render it abso- 
lutely indubitable. One of these is the rigorous demonstration 
by Richard Dedekind 1 that the world of man's ideas as ideas 
the human Gedankenwelt as the author calls it is strictly 
an infinite manifold. Shorn of context and non-essentials, 
the proof may be rendered in a line, and the reader, if he has 
been attentive, is prepared to grasp it at once. Denote by 

1 Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen. Also published in English under 
the title, The Nature and Meaning of Number, by the Open Court Publishing 
Co., Chicago, Ills., U.S.A. 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 889 

G the whole Gedankenwelt, by / any idea therein, as that of 
a song, a deed of charity, a diamond, a birth or a death ; by I I 
the idea of 7 ; by 7 2 that of 7 X ; and, generally, by 7 n+1 that of 
7 n . As any thought may itself be object of another thought, 
7 n+1 can never fail, and so we have the two totalities : 
(T) /, /i, 4 , 4, 4+u , 

\ * ) *!> *-2i -*3. } 4+l 4+2> > 

the latter a part of the former, and both of them parts of G. 
Now pair (T) with ( J"), as shown in the following scheme : 

** *1 5 M *** > 4) 4+1 j 4+l> 4+2 

At once it is seen that the whole totality (T) is perfectly 
matched by its part (T f ). Whence it follows that ( T) and 
( J"), and, a fortiori, their common container G, are infinite, 
each and all. A demonstration so simple and clear that even 
the secular mind of a child may understand it, and yet so 
unimposing, so free from pomp and circumstance, that, 
despite its revelation of the infinite range and wealth of the 
ideal realm of the human soul, the theologically wise are wont 
to pass it by unwitting or unimpressed. But not even these, 
it would seem, can remain for ever blind to the second con- 
sideration, for it points to the achievements, the flaming deeds 
themselves, of the prowess that the former serves to reveal 
only by pale subtleties of argument. 

" Hier 1st es Zeit, durch Thaten zu beweisen, 
Dass Manneswiirde nicht der Gotterhohe weicht." 

What, you ask, can the exploits be ? I answer : within the 
memory of living men, human Thought, emboldened by 
achievement and a deepening sense of its boundless resources, 
borne aloft and onward by the burning ardour of its own 
genius as by a chariot of fire, has not only passed the utmost 
walls of the finite world, but established there, far beyond the 
ancient borders, the dominion of Logic ; and there, within the 
realm of transfinite being, Mannigfaltigkeitslehre? mightiest 

1 A well-nigh complete bibliography of this transfinite movement of 
thought is found in Young's Theory of Point Sets. No other memoirs on the 
subject afford the reader so profound a view of its abysses as do those by 



390 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

among the empires of Reason, flourishes to-day, its radiance 
and power not only pervading the entire domain of mathe- 
matics but destined also to reach and penetrate every branch 
of knowledge and speculation. There the sether of thought 
pervades the infinite and eternal, 

"Times unending 
Comprehending, 
Space and worlds of worlds transcending." 1 

There Man is seen transfigured in the light of his genius, the 
soul comes to a sense of its own and " yields not in dignity to 
grandeur divine." 

In the presence of such a vision, the terrors of Naturalism 
dwindle and vanish. Kant's exclamation that "modern 
astronomy has annihilated my own importance" ceases to 
have significance. We desire no instauration of the shallow 
and timid humanism that derived its estimate of man 
from a geocentric theory of the universe, cried alarm at the 
crumbling of a Mosaic cosmogony, and still shudders at the 
shrinking of the earth to a pebble in the cosmic perspective 
opened to the view by modern science. For that is no 
material scene the mathetic mount of Humanity's trans- 
figuration. And when Theology shall have learned, like 
Mathesis, to disdain the expanding bigness of the external 
universe, to discern the presence of " infinite riches in a little 
room," to behold with the inner eye, in the supersensuous 
world of Thought, the sublime dignity, the infinite power, the 
divine stature of Man, the droning organs of sacred discipline 
will become mighty instruments of inspiration. 2 

CASSIUS J. KEYSER. 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 

Georg Cantor, easily the Primate of all who have contributed to its 
development. 

1 From the prize poem, " The Merman and the Seraph," by Wm. Benjamin 
Smith, in Poet 'Lore, Boston. 

2 A concluding article, by the same author, will appear in the April issue. 
The reader is further referred to the article "The Concept of the Infinite," 
by Professor Royce, in the HIBBERT JOURNAL for October 1902. EDITOR. 



A GREAT REFORM IN THE TREAT- 
MENT OF CRIMINALS. 

PROBATION AND CHILDREN'S COURTS 
IN ITALY. 

Miss LUCY C. BARTLETT, 

Of the Howard Association. 

THE first society for the application of Probation in Italy was 
founded at Rome on 10th May 1906. In this past year 
three similar societies have been founded at Milan, Turin, and 
Florence, while a ministerial circular issued on 10th May last 
provides for the separate hearing of juvenile cases in other 
words, marks the commencement of Children's Courts in Italy. 

These results, as will easily be understood, have not been 
obtained without much effort, and the whole story of the 
struggle may perhaps have interest for those who care to 
trace the development of reforms. But that which lends to 
this movement a special interest is the fact that it has been 
entirely due to private initiative, and the initiative in most 
cases of very young people. The movement has now the 
royal patronage, and is assisted by a Government subsidy, while 
many notable men of the political and legal worlds are con- 
tent to give it their support. But for its commencement 
and development it depended upon the faith and energy of a 
few young men, all under thirty years of age, and with them 
to-day, in great part at least, lies the merit of the success. 

When, four years ago, I first began to speak in Rome of 
the possibility of applying the American Probation system 



391 



.392 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

in Italy, most people told me 1 was mad. Some few gave 
me encouragement, but most people thought I was attempt- 
ing a hopeless task. But I was sufficiently sanguine to sail 
for America in the March of that year, 1905, to study the 
system in the land of its birth. I gave three months to this 
study, and returned to Europe with my plans matured. 

For in the city of Indianapolis I had found a system 
which I thought possible to transplant to Italy. It was the 
volunteer system the system of employing only some three 
paid Probation officers to do the work of organisation and 
preliminary investigation, and for all the visitation and 
supervision of the children the moral side of the work- 
relying on volunteer aid. 

This system which I found in Indianapolis was the first 
which brought me a solution of my problems. For the 
difficulties which faced me in Italy were two: the impossi- 
bility of finding the money for many salaries the im- 
possibility, amongst paid officials, of finding the right kind 
of men for the moral side of the work. 

But, watching the system of Indianapolis, my hopes rose 
high. I believed that I could find volunteers similar to 
these in Italy. And it was no small encouragement to me 
to find the Indianapolis system not only feasible for my 
purposes, but also, as I judged it, by far the best in America. 
Nowhere else had I found such accuracy of supervision 
and such intimacy of relationship as in this Court where 
volunteer citizens were used for the care of the children. 
And the explanation was not far to seek. Where a paid 
officer must needs, for economy's sake, be asked to supervise 
as many as two hundred cases sometimes, these volunteers 
had never more than two or three under their care. The 
tie with the child was close and personal. The volunteers, 
too, had been carefully chosen not all who had offered 
themselves for the work had been appointed. But so great 
was the interest of the citizens that, even after elimination, 
it had been possible to form a band of one hundred and 



PROBATION OF CRIMINALS 393 

twenty-five, including doctors, men of business, ministers of 
every cult, and some ladies of wealth all fitted, and eager 
to lend themselves to this work of child-saving. I par- 
ticipated in the work of Indianapolis for some two weeks 
or more, attending the trials of the Juvenile Court and 
accompanying the officers on their visits, and it was with a 
high ideal of what Probation might be that I returned to 
Rome in the autumn of 1905. 

My ideals I shared at once with a young doctor in law, 
Signor Emilio Re, and it is from this time on that I say the 
young men of Italy are responsible for the success which has 
been gained. This success has been too much ascribed to 
me, I being called everywhere the founder of this work. But 
in reality I did no more than bring the idea it is with the 
youth of Italy that the credit of its application lies. 

Signor Re at once gave to my ideas an Italian setting. He 
explained to me the Italian law on which they could be based. 
This Italian law, known as the Conditional Condemnation, is 
somewhat similar to the First Offenders Act of England, 
which was repealed with the passing of the new Probation 
Act in August 1907. According to its provisions, minors, 
women, and men over seventy, who have committed a first 
offence worthy of not more than one year's imprisonment, may 
be left at liberty, under the condition that they be not re- 
convicted within a period fixed by the judge ; the same 
privilege is accorded to men between the ages of eighteen and 
seventy, guilty of a first offence, if this offence has merited 
not more than six months' imprisonment. This law was 
passed in Italy in June 1904 ; as will be seen, it gives the first 
offender his liberty, but gives him no assistance to use that 
liberty worthily. 

This hiatus, which has ever constituted the weakness of 
all European laws of pardon, we in Rome desired to remedy 
by founding a society which should offer to minors receiving 
the Conditional Condemnation that assistance which the 
Probation Officer affords in America. We realised that our 



394 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

work could not be equally efficient, since our volunteer officers 
would not have the weight of the law behind them in their 
supervision, but still we believed that it would be possible to 
achieve something, and that in this way a species of Probation 
might be introduced. 

Signor Re first sought to form a band of young men who 
would promise themselves as volunteer officers after the 
fashion of Indianapolis. In this he succeeded without much 
difficulty : ere long fifteen young men, mostly young advocates, 
had promised their services. But it was desirable for an 
experiment as novel as ours to have some strong patrons, 
and here the first difficulty arose which tested the mettle of 
these young volunteers, and, deciding the whole future of the 
work, gave to them its glory. 

Our strongest patron at this time was a certain deputy, 
a well-known penalist, a counsellor of the Court of Appeal, 
and a man who had considerable influence with the Govern- 
ment. It was indeed through his influence that we had been 
led to expect that our experiment, when floated, would be 
assisted by a Government subsidy. He had also spoken of 
the work in Parliament, and as our ultimate hope was that 
our experiment might one day lead to an amendment of the 
law, this deputy was for us a very important personage. 

Our dismay may therefore be imagined when, after five 
months of weary preparation and delays, he suddenly announced 
that the plan of action must be changed, or he must withdraw 
his support. The work, he said, must not be founded on the 
Conditional Condemnation, but on certain clauses of the civil 
code, according to which rebellious children, denounced as 
such by their parents to a magistrate, can be sent to a reforma- 
tory. Some of these cases he desired should instead be given 
over to our care, and located with families in the country. 
It was a boarding-out system he desired. Probation vanished 
into thin air, for the children so placed would have been 
beyond the reach of our volunteers visiting would have 
become impossible. Further, it would have been no penal 



PROBATION OF CRIMINALS 395 

reform we should have been promoting along these lines, for 
these children have not offended against the penal code they 
are merely misdemeanants, often not even that, but merely 
the children of parents who wish to get rid of them. 

In short, we saw the whole structure of our work crumbling 
if we accepted this deputy's plan ; yet, on the other side, if we 
rejected it, we should lose not only his support, but that of 
the Government we should be throwing away every prop we 
possessed, before our work was even launched. It was surely 
a situation which tempted to compromise, if not surrender. 
Yet these young men stooped to neither, and in that they 
proved their fitness for future conquest. 

On the 8th April of that year, 1906, the decisive meeting 
was held. Everything in the way of conciliation was attempted. 
A well-known professor of jurisprudence of the Rome University, 
Professor Ottolenghi, voiced our views ; of the fifteen people 
present, twelve voted for the Conditional Condemnation as 
the basis of our work. But still the deputy mentioned re- 
mained obdurate, and after two hours of weary debate he still 
held to his ultimatum his plan, or his retirement. With one 
accord we then accepted the latter, and he withdrew, taking 
with him, as we had expected, the Government representative. 

In this way did the work begin in Rome with a struggle 
which decided from the outset what the type of the work was 
to be whether it was to be based on principles or personages. 
The difficulties served as a veritable threshing-machine. 
" You have ruined everything ! " was the comment of this 
deputy's secretary to me in the hour that I let his chief depart. 
But I felt rather that everything had been saved. Not only 
had a right basis been secured, but the volunteers had passed 
a test which proved their fitness for the future work. 

For it should ever be remembered that that which makes 
the whole force of Probation is the quality of the workers 
who engage in it. It is a system which calls for the influence 
of character on character. The offender is left at liberty 
instead of being shut within prison walls : the desire is to 



396 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

persuade him to a permanent amendment, rather than force 
him thereto for a limited period. Coercion, with subsequent 
relapse, has been found unsatisfactory prison walls are losing 
the public confidence gentler and more educative methods, 
represented by systems like Probation, are winning an attentive 
hearing. And in substituting educative for coercive ideas the 
public is undoubtedly making a great step forward. But 
there is danger lest the reform stop at ideas. Education in 
its deepest sense education of the heart and character can 
never be communicated, it should be remembered, by any 
system. This is always a question of personal influence. A 
large corps of badly chosen Probation officers might visit 
regularly, and accomplish exactly nothing, in a moral sense. 
A few of the right kind, struggling even with enormous 
difficulties, can accomplish much. 

This was the root of my confidence in the Rome work after 
the test above mentioned it had shown me that the workers 
were of the right kind. Insight, courage, and enthusiasm had 
been proved these educative forces I knew would be brought 
to bear upon the children, and efficiency would come with a 
little practice. 

And so it has proved. It would be wearisome, in a general 
account such as this, to trace every detail in the development 
of the work from that moment to the present, but the main 
incidents I will just indicate briefly. 

On the 10th May 1906 just a month after the loss of our 
deputy our first Probation Society was successfully in- 
augurated, formed on the basis of the Conditional Condemna- 
tion, and taking for its name " Society for Minors Conditionally 
Condemned." In the interim month we had gained the 
invaluable support of the Public Prosecutor of that time, 
Cavaliere Calabrese now promoted to the Court of Appeal, 
and become the President of our Rome Probation work. 
Through his good offices we receive every week from the 
Courts a list of the names of those boys who during that week 
have received the Conditional Condemnation, together with all 



PROBATION OF CRIMINALS 397 

particulars. This puts our paid agent in a position to visit the 
cases. Some cannot be traced, and many, for various reasons, 
are not suited for our care ; but such as are suitable, and willing 
to accept the assistance, are entered on the register of the 
society, and passed over to the care of the volunteers. There 
are now forty-one volunteers in Rome, and we have something 
over a hundred boys under our care. It says something for 
the tact of the volunteers that only in one single instance has 
their visiting been refused, although, as already stated, the 
parents have always the right to refuse the visits, our society 
having no legal powers. But the people have no desire to 
repulse us, and their growing confidence is shown by the 
frequent appeals we receive to help cases outside our domain. 
All this must be set to the credit of the volunteers, for no 
other member of the society comes into direct contact with 
the poor people. 

The society of Rome numbers now three hundred sup- 
porters, including eight senators, four deputies, and various 
men high in the legal world, as well as many members of the 
aristocracy. Two professors of the University are on our 
Council, and three leading men of the commercial world : the 
former assist us by making the work known among their 
students, and sending them to recruit our corps of volunteers 
the latter, by finding work for our protege's. When the 
society had been only a year at work, it was granted the 
Government subsidy which had seemed to be forfeited, and its 
work received a long and laudatory mention in Parliament. 
This past year a deputation of the society was received by the 
King, the Queen, and the Queen Mother, all of whom ex- 
pressed approval, and promised patronage, while the Munici- 
pality has given great assistance by granting to the society, 
almost rent free, four rooms in a central locality. This 
possession of a headquarters will mean great extension of 
the work. 

These are results which were gained in two years, without 
money, and without influence, in a city called, by all who 



398 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

know it, " apathetic." Does it not say something for the 
force of the workers and the value of volunteer work ? 

Encouraged by the success in Rome, I went at the close 
of March of last year to Milan, to try, if possible, to start the 
work there. In Milan the difficulties which met me were 
quite different from those of Rome. Throughout the long 
campaign in the capital, scepticism and inertia had been the 
chief obstacles we had been required to combat. In Milan, 
inertia is unknown the citizens are intensely wide-awake and 
energetic. And with scepticism too I was no longer obliged 
to struggle, for the success of the work in Rome set that aside. 
My difficulties were quite different they lay in the monopo- 
lising spirit of an already existent society, and in the sharp 
division of the political parties. 

With regard to the first difficulty, I was enabled to take 
the firm stand which I did take by reason of experience I had 
gained during my tour of investigation in America. In the 
city of New York the juvenile Probation work has been 
largely given into the hands of the New York Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Of the work of this 
society in its own line I wish to speak no word of criticism, 
but I voice not merely my own opinion, but that of many 
people, when I say it is matter for regret that the Probation 
work of the city has in part been given into its hands. Pro- 
bation work requires, if not the undivided attention of those 
who are directing it, at least the first place in their thoughts 
and interest. For this reason is it becoming recognised as the 
ideal to reserve one judge for the trial of juvenile cases. A 
certain attitude of mind is required, which is disturbed by 
work diametrically different in nature. If this is true of the 
trials, it is also true of the period of supervision even more 
true, since the tie between the child and his Probation Officer 
is a closer and more lasting one than that between him and 
the judge. If the visits to a child are paid by different 
officers, or by an officer with many different interests in his 
mind, the moral value is generally nil, and the Probation 



PROBATION OF CRIMINALS 399 

system becomes a farce. And these dangers, I had learnt in 
America, are almost inevitably present when Probation is 
undertaken by a body whose interests are already engaged 
elsewhere. Accordingly, I should have objected to the pro- 
bation work of Milan being entirely in the hands of the 
society above mentioned, even had I had in this society a 
greater faith than I had. But as a matter of fact I had no 
faith. I knew the society had already more work than it 
could manage, and was very hampered as to funds. It had 
put Probation on its programme, but on the programme alone 
I knew it would remain, if no other body of workers took it 
up. I asked its director to co-operate with a new society 
which was to be founded for that purpose. He refused, and 
his refusal rendered very difficult my work in Milan, but could 
not obstruct it. I obtained the support of the Mayor, the 
chief paper, and many of the leading citizens, and on the 4th 
April held a meeting which launched successfully in Milan 
also a " Society for Minors Conditionally Condemned." Fifty 
people joined the society that night, and the membership has 
risen considerably since. As elsewhere, this membership in- 
cludes many prominent men of the legal world the President 
of the Criminal Court is President of the Executive Committee, 
while young advocates largely compose the corps of volunteers. 

My difficulty regarding political divisions was also to some 
extent resolved. I had been told in Rome that it would not 
be possible to form a neutral society in Milan that I should 
have to be content to form it from one political party or 
another the feeling on political questions runs so high, and 
parties are so sharply divided. This did not seem to me at all 
ideal, and I am glad to say that with a little effort it was 
possible to avoid such limitation. The Milan society numbers 
both Catholics and socialists among its members. The work, 
from the latest accounts, is proceeding briskly, very much 
along the lines of the work in Rome. 

Senator Brusa, who had been my chairman at the Milan 
meeting, persuaded me to hold a similar meeting in Turin on 



400 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

7th April, and this led to the foundation of the society there. 
Eighty people joined the society on this occasion, and among 
the supporters are Professor Lombroso and Professor Carrara. 
But the Turin work is still too much in embryo to make an 
account of it possible at present. 

In Florence, on 13th April a large meeting, attended by 
many of the most notable people of the city, inaugurated there 
a " Society for Minors Conditionally Condemned." It is not 
too much to say that this work has aroused a wave of sympathy 
and enthusiasm wherever it has been mentioned through the 
country. Even at Naples Naples, considered by many so 
hopeless in its social conditions there is a brave little band 
of people struggling to prepare the way for its introduction. 
At the inaugural meeting in Florence the representative of 
the Mayor promised all the support of the Municipality to the 
new-born society. The Prefect, present in person, became a 
member of the directive committee, which, as elsewhere, was 
composed of very strong people. But with Cavaliere Moschini, 
the Public Prosecutor of Florence, and the President now of 
the society there, rests the chief honour for the splendid piece 
of work which has been done since. 

In February, supported by Senator Brusa, I had had an 
interview with the Minister of Justice, in which 1 had described 
to him at some length the procedure of Children's Courts as I 
had seen it in America, and the many advantages pertaining 
to the separate hearing of juvenile cases. He had promised 
me that he would make such a separation in Italy, by issuing 
a circular which should reserve for the exclusive hearing of 
children's cases one room in each criminal court possessing 
several rooms ; in the smaller places, he had explained to me, 
separation would not be possible. 

With this promise I had been well content, but several 
months had passed without producing the circular, and though 
I mentioned the Minister's promise wherever I went, and tried 
indirectly to remind him of it, my hopes had begun to burn low. 
Then, to my deep joy, Florence acted on its own initiative. 



PROBATION OF CRIMINALS 401 

Very shortly after the founding of the Probation Society 
there, Cavaliere Moschini, who had become its President, 
persuaded the President of the Criminal Court of Florence to 
fix a separate hearing for juvenile cases. Cavaliere Fiani 
gave sympathetic consent, and on the 26th May, with some 
solemnity, a Children's Court was inaugurated at Florence. 
From this time on all juvenile cases will be heard on Tuesday 
morning, in the " Second Section " of the Courts, by the same 
judge. On the 10th May the Minister's circular appeared 
ordering this change, but it was known to many that Florence 
had already made all the necessary provisions. The initiative 
of Cavaliere Moschini and Cavaliere Fiani cannot be too highly 
praised : it was such men as these made Florence great in the 
past, and will make Italy great in the future. 

And warm praise must also be given to Cavaliere Calabrese, 
the President of the Rome Society for Minors Conditionally 
Condemned, for it was from a memorial composed by him that 
the Minister's circular was actually drafted. He presented 
this memorial towards the end of April, and on the 10th May, 
as already stated, the circular was issued. The four chief 
provisions of this much-desired circular are : 

1. That juvenile cases shall be heard separately from those 
of adults, in one room of the Courts reserved for the purpose, 
or at least at a separate hour. 

2. That they shall be heard always by the same judge. 

3. That this judge shall endeavour to treat juvenile cases 
in a psychological rather than a punitive spirit. 

4. That children not concerned in the trials shall not be 
allowed to loiter about the rooms and corridors of the Courts, 
as they have hitherto done. 

This circular of the Minister of Justice closes my account 
of Probation and Juvenile Court work in Italy. The circular 
must undoubtedly produce a species of Children's Courts in all 
the large cities ere long, while Probation work, based on the 
law of the Conditional Condemnation, shows also every sign 

VOL. VII. No. 2. 26 



402 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of spreading rapidly. The societies of Florence and Turin 
already number over one hundred members each, and this year 
may possibly see the introduction of the work at Naples and 
in Venice. These are the results. But before ending I should 
like to indicate clearly once more what are the forces and 
instruments through which such results have been obtained. 

I have spoken of the volunteers of Rome, and the part 
they played in the inauguration of the first society. At Milan 
it was the same story. Young Signor Maino, a boy of twenty- 
one, was my right hand throughout all my difficulties there, 
and without his untiring aid the society in all probability 
could not have been launched. At Florence, similarly, the 
lion's share of the credit belongs to young Signor Ferrando, 
who had so prepared the ground before my coming that I had 
only to put the match to a mine already laid. And so is it 
going to be with Naples ; and so will it doubtless be with 
every town where the work takes root. The forces which 
move this work are faith, enthusiasm, devotion and these 
find their natural expression, their natural instruments, in the 
youth of the country. 

And what of England ? I would ask that question in con- 
clusion. England enjoys now the benefit of a Probation Act 
of legally appointed Probation Officers. But is the work 
going to be left without the co-operation of private interest, to 
become mechanical, or at best inadequate ? This is a critical 
moment for Probation in England. So far, some magistrates 
have shown interest in the new law, and wisdom in applying 
it, but many have no confidence in it at all. A wider con- 
fidence can only be aroused if interest and co-operation are 
forthcoming from the public. There is need of many letters 
to the press at this juncture letters asking for a wide applica- 
tion of the law, and showing an intelligent comprehension of, 
and interest in it, on the part of private citizens. It would be 
of great assistance too if the Home Office could see its way to 
paying good salaries to a few competent men, rather than 
piecework payments to many, which is the present method. 



PROBATION OF CRIMINALS 403 

The well-paid Probation Officer, in charge of a district if it were 
London, or a whole town if it were a small provincial town, 
could and should be trusted, as a part of his office, to enrol 
such subsidiary aid as his work might require. Here is where 
volunteer co-operation the co-operation of clubs, societies, 
and private individuals enters in. The well-paid, efficient 
man is needed at the helm, to organise ; then should come 
that spontaneous co-operation from the public which has given 
to the work its finest success in America and its whole success 
in Italy. Both are needed the organisation and the life. 
But inasmuch as England, with its orderly spirit, can always 
be trusted to arrive at organisation eventually, I end this 
paper with a plea for the life. Are there no young men from 
our many social settlements ready to volunteer for this work 
after the manner of the young men of Italy ? The work will 
soon be organised, no doubt ; but if the forces of devotion and 
enthusiasm be left out, it will be arid and ineffectual. Proba- 
tion introduces a new era in penal treatment, because it recog- 
nises man as an intelligence to be reformed by methods 
directed to the inner self, rather than a machine to be tinkered 
at externally. This is a great advance ; but if the methods 
remain mechanical, then the supervision with liberty can 
obtain little more than the supervision with imprisonment. 
It is the spirit which must be changed as well as the form. 
United to order, we want elasticity united to caution, hope. 
And these qualities are best found in young and eager workers 
who are giving themselves gratuitously to a cause. May 
volunteers not be lacking then to the Probation work of 
England volunteers of the right stamp ! And then in this 
penal field, as in every other, shall we be able to test afresh the 
power of that great principle of love, ever the harbinger of 
progress, and ever invincible where joined to wisdom. 

LUCY C. BARTLETT. 

LONDON. 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AS AFFECTED BY 
LIBERAL THEOLOGY. 

AN APPEAL FROM THE MISSION-FIELD. 
THE REV. J. W. BURTON, 

Of the Australian Methodist Missionary Society, Indian Mission, Fiji. 

THERE can be no doubt that the spirit which is called Liberalism 
is having to-day a very powerful influence, both direct and 
indirect, upon the Missionary enterprises of the Christian 
Church. That influence will become deeper in the near future, 
and must lead to important and characteristic modifications 
in both the practical policy and theoretical objective of 
Missions. 

On the whole, the new spirit may be confidently expected 
to exercise a salutary influence. It will ultimately furnish the 
Missionary project with stronger and more abiding motives. 
We must not be surprised, however, if it is some considerable 
time before the mass, which so enthusiastically supports this 
activity of the Church, becomes accustomed to the new 
perspective. It may even happen, though there are no signs 
of it at present, that there will be a momentary declension of 
interest and a temporary paralysis of effort until the full force 
of the new imperatives has been substituted for the old. For 
it must be remembered that the modern views of God and 
His relation to men, of the future state, of the Bible and 
dogma, of the non- Christian religions, and, especially, of the 
future of the human race upon the earth, not only affect the 

404 






MISSIONS AND MODERNISM 405 

attitude of the Missionary on the field, but profoundly alter 
or qualify the motives of those who send him. 

Those who have been trained in the " Old School " find it 
hard, if not altogether impossible, to understand how devotion 
can be preserved in the absence of those motives which they 
have held to be essential. They find it equally difficult to 
believe that the new grounds upon which modern Missionary 
effort is based are solid rock and not loose, inadherent sand. 
Sometimes they show bitterness in their criticism of the 
newer ways of thinking and become even rancorous. But far 
be it from the Liberal to give reply in the same spirit. The 
older views have been a noble row of shelter-trees in whose 
protection the young saplings of Modernism have grown. 
There must therefore be no vicious use of the axe. We are, 
because they stood between us and the biting east winds of 
materialism ; and now, even though we imagine they are 
keeping the morning sun from us, we must be courteously 
patient. Our more vigorous life is draining the soil of that 
nourishment which was once theirs alone, and here and there 
withered and broken branches on those storm-beaten trees 
tell us that soon we must take their place and become, in our 
turn, the shelter of other saplings. 

The present era of Missionary activity commenced, roughly 
speaking, two hundred and fifty years ago. It commenced at 
a time when scientific inquiry was in its go-cart and had not 
learnt to use its limbs. The ink was not dry upon Bacon's 
epoch-making book, nor were its pages digested by the 
intellectual men of that day. Missionary inspirations were 
drawn from beliefs that are no longer vital, and the motives 
of the enterprise were founded upon creeds which practically 
have lost their authority for us. Those aspirations and 
motives were real enough then. They pulsed with the arterial 
convictions of the men who acknowledged them. They sent a 
Carey to India and a Brainerd to America. But those motives 
do not inspire us to the same extent to-day. Some of them 
move us not at all. " Time makes ancient good uncouth." 



406 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

The age has changed. The spirit of to-day is removed 
from the spirit of yesterday as far as the east is from the west, 
" and never the twain shall meet." We no longer sing 

The heathen perish day by day, 
Thousands on thousands pass away ; 
O Christians, to their rescue fly ! 
Preach Jesus to them ere they die. 

If we sing it, we do not believe it, or else we interpret it in a 
manner entirely foreign to Montgomery's meaning. This age 
is frankly humanitarian almost utilitarian. It applies 
standards of judgment which, though they may be intensely 
spiritual in essence, are undisguisedly practical and this- worldly. 
Professor James applies ugly adjectives to us, and says that we 
are "pragmatical." So be it. The ladder by which we ascend 
to heaven must have its feet firmly planted upon the earth. 
It is not the post-mortem fortunes of the non- Christian people 
which disquiet the Liberal ; he is troubled rather by their 
present limitations of goodness. He sees nations "sundered 
by the wastes of half a world," and he would fain make whole 
to them their opportunities of life and character. He seeks 
to give them with ourselves, so far as may be, equal chances 
to become sons of God and sharers in the spiritual wealth of 
the Kingdom which Christ revealed to the eyes of men. It is 
not that the individual is of less value than the old creeds 
asserted ; but the unit can often be best helped through acting 
upon the mass. So our thought goes out, not so much to the 
tiny coral animal working on the edge of the reef, as to the 
great ocean currents which shape that reef and thus decide the 
environment of every inhabitant upon it. The new spirit aims 
at changing the currents of the great seas of human life, or, 
to change the metaphor, has as its objective the founding of 
the Kingdom of God on earth. It may be noticed, in passing, 
that Christ Himself had a similar ideal. 

This spirit, then, which has been growing into maturity 
during the last thirty or forty years, now asks to be recognised 
by the Christian Church and to be enfranchised in the councils 



MISSIONS AND MODERNISM 407 

of Missionary enterprise. It has been making, for many years 
past, large contributions of men and women to the Mission- 
field, and thus its claim has justice and reason to sustain it. 

Necessarily, one of the first endeavours of the modern 
spirit will be to build up a science of Christian Missions. It 
is a child of that self-same scientific spirit which has unified 
knowledge and created method in the investigation of the 
physical world. The method and principles of the laboratory 
need not be incongruous in the realms of the spiritual. This 
new science will busy itself with collecting, scrutinising, and 
classifying the data from which working theories of Missionary 
practice may be deduced. For it must be admitted that 
there are gradually coming into view, as the result of several 
generations of experience, certain common principles of Mis- 
sionary endeavour and policy. These are in sore need of 
classification and general application. 

No student of Missions can blind himself to the fact that 
the Missionary programme has suffered many unnecessary 
interruptions through a lack of definite and settled policy. 
Instead of an organised army fighting in accordance with 
strict and ascertained military principles, with regiment sup- 
porting regiment in a carefully thought-out plan of campaign, 
we have the deplorable spectacle of thousands of undisciplined 
squads and irresponsible sharp-shooters, without any acknow- 
ledged leader and utterly destitute of any concerted plan of 
action. The soldiers have been sent out in the most hap- 
hazard fashion with the vaguest instructions. Too often 
their equipment is ridiculously imperfect and the arms they 
bear sadly obsolete. The marvel is that with such lack of 
organisation and want of unity in operation there should be 
even the meagre success there is. 

In only a few rare cases have the various Missionary 
Societies in any one country resolved upon a united course 
of endeavour. There is no evidence yet of any serious attempt 
to co-ordinate forces in a world-wide movement. In the 
great majority of cases there is no relation between the regi- 



408 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



ments stationed in the individual field of battle. Too often 
the soldiers have not been formed into fighting units, but 
each goes a-warfaring at his own charges and according to his 
own judgment. If the Missionary be a capable man, after 
few years of experience he usually forms a policy for himself, 
but he has no guarantee that his successor will carry it out. 
In the home churches there is a strong and permanent 
element which continues lines of successful policy and is nol 
affected, to any large extent, by a change of minister ; but ii 
the Mission-field it is different. The converts are weak, an< 
dependent, in a great measure, upon the guidance and direc- 
tion of the Missionary. So it happens that Mission-fields are 
studded with half-built castles, and the graves of capabl< 
workers are marked by broken shafts of unaccomplished pur- 
poses. This is, to-day, the real tragedy of Missionary life. 

It is to be recognised with thankfulness that this chaoti< 
state of affairs is gradually being altered. A new spirit 
brooding over the waters. There is a growing desire to plac 
Missions upon a more scientific and stable basis. Mission- 
aries themselves have felt this need for many years past ; bu1 
hitherto they have been voices crying in the wilderness. 
Now, it would seem, they are coming into their kingdom. 
Missionary Congresses, Bureaux of Information, and " Chairs 
of Missions" in Theological Colleges are all contributing to 
this desired result. 

In spite of the dramatic and enthusiastic utterances ol 
the class usually associated, rightly or wrongly, with " Exel 
Hall," Foreign Missions have not been the success they might 
reasonably have been expected to be, when the enormoi 
expenditure of life and wealth is considered. This fact 
admitted privately, of course by those who are in a posi- 
tion to judge. It is not the criticism of the unsympathetic 
but the sigh of the disappointed. The successes are, as 
rule, trumpeted abroad ; the failures are discreetly hidd< 
away. We hear much on Missionary platforms of the faith- 
fulness and devotion of converts ; but there is another sidi 



MISSIONS AND MODERNISM 409 

and it is to be feared the larger side the instability, the 

unfaithfulness, and the greed of those who have been won. 
For information on these points we have to search laboriously 
through dry and almost unread Missionary reports. Certainly 
there is a philosophy behind this course of emphasising the 
best rather than the worst ; but while it has some admirable 
qualities, it is also open to grave dangers. It often results in 
a state exceedingly difficult to change the state of self- 
deception. 

This dearth of success, which is secretly mourned by so 
many friends of the Kingdom and so blatantly advertised by 
so many of its enemies, is accounted for in many ways. 
Usually the explanation is the fundamental difficulty of the 
undertaking itself. It is to be admitted that the task which 
the Christian Church has set herself is far harder, and will 
take much longer to accomplish, than most enthusiasts imagine, 
yet the paucity of success is not explained by this fact. There 
is an alarming amount of misdirected energy upon the Mission- 
field. This is due, as has already been hinted, to a grievous 
lack of definite and comprehensive policy. If the energy 
expended year by year could be concentrated in some united 
action, much of this waste might be arrested. 

Sometimes it happens that the meagre policy of a Society 
has no real relation to the special conditions which obtain 
on the field. This policy has been formulated thousands of 
miles away from the scene of operations. The Mission 
Secretary announces from time to time that the policy is 
working splendidly ; and so it seems to be. But those who 
are allowed into the secret see that it works because Mission- 
aries have either good sense enough to take no notice of its 
ridiculous elements or else have art enough to interpret it to 
suit their own ideas. Such a state of affairs can scarcely be 
called satisfactory. Nevertheless, these Mission Boards are 
composed of good men earnestly desirous of advancing the 
Kingdom of God. That they take themselves so seriously 
and, because they are still in the flesh, assume a sort of 



410 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Vatican infallibility, only complicates the case. Had they 
the saving grace of humour, and were they obliged by the 
articles of constitution to read certain chapters in Bleak House, 
wherein Mrs Jellyby dwells upon a scheme for educating the 
natives of Borrioboola on the left bank of the Niger by teach- 
ing them to turn piano-legs ! the " policy " might be shorn of 
some of its absurdities. They might even stoop to collect 
opinions from experienced Missionaries. 

In bringing about a more scientific and ordered policy on 
the part of the Missionary Societies by codifying and orienting 
the experiences of the past, the science of Missions will render 
signal service to the Christian Church. 

There is space in this short article only to notice one or 
two of the more important and general problems which need 
to be dealt with by that science when it has come into being. 

1. One of these is the question, What races shall be evan- 
gelised first ? Reflection will surely force us to the conclusion 
that, from the Modernist's point of view of a Kingdom of God 
upon earth, some races are more worth saving than others. It 
is far more important, for instance, that Japan should be 
Christian in life and spirit than that the whole of the South 
Seas should be converted. The inhabitants of these islands 
have evidently no function to perform in the great evolution 
of humanity, but he would be a bold man who would dare to 
outline the limits of Japan's or China's function. There is 
a fallacy underlying the statement that " one soul is as good 
as another." Some souls mean far more to the future than 
others, and this should not be lost sight of in the Missionary 
effort of the Church. It would seem that the resources of 
Missions are strictly limited, and the fact has to be faced that, 
in spite of all the special pleadings, bazaars, exhibitions, 
cinematographs, and what not, Christendom is not prepared 
to spend very much larger sums upon the foreign field. But 
suppose that the Church were brought to some feeble realisa- 
tion of her duty, and that, as the result, the contributions were 
multiplied by ten a most unlikely event even then it would 



MISSIONS AND MODERNISM 411 

be impossible to equip the various fields of the whole world 
in any such manner as to ensure a satisfactory result. Seeing 
that it is manifestly impossible, at present, to attempt the 
conversion of the entire world, as wise Christian empire- 
builders we must select our fields. If it must needs be that 
some are to be left without the Gospel who shall they be ? 
Common sense would seem to say that we ought first to 
attempt the living and progressive peoples who hold in their 
hands the keys of the future. But it may be asked in 
astonishment, " Are you going to allow the natives of Africa 
and the South Seas to perish ? " The reply might be well 
made, "Are you going to allow the millions in India and 
China to pass away without the hope of the Gospel ? " This is 
really a matter of policy, and must be considered as such. It 
is a question of "first things first." Paul was probably up- 
braided by certain well-meaning people for leaving the more 
primitive souls of Samaria and Judea to perish while he went 
to the more advanced races of Greece and Italy. But Paul 
was a statesman. He saw " the strategic points in the world's 
conquest." 

Does the Church follow Paul in this? Is there not a 
tendency to choose fields where we may " count the game," 
and to be satisfied with easy and rapid victory rather than be 
spurred to greater endeavour by temporary failure ? "I 
believe in supporting a Mission-field like New Guinea in 
preference to India or China," said a wealthy layman to the 
writer recently ; " I get more souls for my money." He was 
frank and candid about it. It must be remembered that it 
is a comparatively easy task to abolish cannibalism, infanticide, 
and idolatry. Mohammedanism can do, has done, and is 
doing that. But to overcome ancient and errant philosophies 
which are the very fibre of a people's ideals, to correct spiritu- 
ally deranged norms of conduct, to dethrone falseness and 
greed, to sap the foundations of religious systems solidified 
by the pressure of centuries into granite these are the tasks 
which will test the strength of Christianity. 



412 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

2. Another question which must be considered in all its 
bearings, and which is daily becoming more urgent, is that of 
the doctrines which are to be taught to Christian converts. It 
would appear as if Western Christianity is not so catholic as 
it assumes to be, for its conquests have been practically limited 
to European or European-dominated peoples. It does not 
seem to appeal to the East. Every attempt to force it upon 
the Oriental peoples has met with only the sparsest success. 
Where any great impression has been made, there has been 
a liberalising of doctrine, and the creeds of the Western Church 
have been allowed an alarming amount of elasticity. Is it 
not gradually borne in upon the conviction of the Missionary 
to Oriental peoples that many of the things which appeal to 
the West are but moonlight fancies to those who listen to his 
words ? Does he not come to the conclusion that, to use the 
words of a recent writer, " the Christianisation of the Asiatic 
consciousness does not mean its transformation into the like- 
ness of the West ; and that the Mission of the Holy Ghost in 
the East may be to produce an Oriental Christianity different 
in institutional form and temperament from the Christianity 
of Europe and America " ? All that the Missionary can do 
is to lead men to the well of life. He cannot prescribe how, 
or with what vessels, they shall draw from that well. The 
Englishman cannot enjoy his draught of water unless it be 
offered him in a sparkling crystal glass ; the Indian would 
despise it unless contained in a fire-cleansed and polished brass 
lota. Which things are a parable. 

The position to be assigned to the Old Testament is a case 
in point. Should we lead a non-Christian people through the 
wilderness of Jewish tradition and Semitic ideas ? Should we 
ask a people weaker in the faith than ourselves to make those 
adjustments in religious thought which our early training has 
made necessary to us ? The most dangerous trial of faith is 
that of ^learning. Shall we put this strain upon them ? 

Should we be wrong in allowing the more evolved races to 
place their Old Testament where we place the Jewish ? If 



MISSIONS AND MODERNISM 418 

God has spoken in divers manners through the prophets of the 
human race and has not left Himself without witness, can we 
be wrong in allowing to the Hindu his Isaiah who tells of the 
" Coming One " ? The converted Hindu says that the prophet 
who spoke of the Nish-kalank Avatar the Spotless Incarna- 
tion who is to come at the end of this present Kali Yuga 
and bring in the Satya Yuga the reign of truth and 
righteousness spoke of Jesus Christ. He declares that his 
fathers saw Him afar off. Shall we deny him this view ? 

The problem of how much or how little should be taught 
the elementary and primitive races must be discussed. It 
would seem that the most simple and childlike ideas are all 
that are necessary. The training we give a child of seven or 
eight will suffice, for instance, most South Sea Islanders for 
the next few generations. It is example rather than precept 
the native needs discipline rather than theology. To teach 
a Fijian to gabble over the Athanasian Creed, in language not 
deep enough to express its meaning, is only displacing incanta- 
tion by incantation, and fetichism by fetichism. What can a 
Solomon Islander understand of the metaphysics of the Trinity 
or of the Hypostatic Union ? The parable of the Prodigal Son 
is probably as far as the native can intelligently go. Some 
would not restrict that statement to native races. 

3. The question of the locale and organisation of the 
governing bodies of Missions needs much consideration. It 
would appear from the writings of many Missionaries that this 
department of the work is in a very unsatisfactory condition, 
and is in urgent need of reform. 

The China Inland Mission, I understand, has attempted 
the solution of the difficulty by managing all its affairs from 
within. The Missionaries on the field determine the policy 
and distribute the grants without any interference from outside. 
It would be interesting to have a peep behind the scenes, and 
to see how far this method has lessened friction and obviated 
difficulty. On the face of it, the method has the recommenda- 
tion of being reasonable. 



414 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Most Societies, however, manage their affairs principally 
from without the fields they govern, and the result seems to 
be continual disagreement and misunderstanding between the 
" Board " and the " Field." This method, moreover, entails a 
great waste of money. For illustration : here is a society 
(these are actual figures taken from an official report) which 
receives 11,000 from the voluntary offerings of the Church it 
represents. Of this annual sum, 2730 is spent in office and 
general expenses. This means, roughly speaking, that only 
fifteen shillings out of the sovereign actually reach the field for 
effective work. Surely the science of Christian Missions could 
suggest some less expensive scheme. 

There are many other points perhaps equally important 
and pressing which might be touched upon. The self- 
government of convert churches, the relation of the Missionary 
to secular education and to the industrial development of 
races, the training and selection of the Missionary himself are 
all questions which are extremely vital. But probably sufficient 
has been said to indicate how real is the need for a more 
scientific and a broader treatment of the subject of Christian 
Missions. There is necessity for an Ecumenical Council not 
to debate viciously concerning vowels in some theological 
terms, but to direct the splendid energy, unquenchable 
enthusiasm, and spiritual force of Christendom in this the 
widest of all its operations and the most ambitious of all its 
schemes the founding of the Kingdom of God among all the 

nations of the earth. 

J. W. BURTON. 

DAVUI LEVU, FIJI. 



RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF 
THE CULT OF ANCESTORS AND HEROES. 

LEWIS R. FARNELL, D.Litt. 

THE religious institution that is the subject of this paper has 
probably had a wider area of diffusion than any other that 
belongs to personal religion. Though certain European races 
and certain English-speaking communities have discarded it, 
yet it is still a living force among a vast number of our con- 
temporaries both cultured and uncultured, and probably, 
whether we practise it or not, the mental inheritance of all of 
us is deeply indebted to it for good and for evil. Its exact influ- 
ence upon the origins of our civilisation, upon religion, social 
morality, law, and art, is a baffling problem to solve, and only a 
few competent investigators are beginning to throw light on it. 
The statistics bearing on the facts are scattered through various 
papers and treatises, and we urgently require a comprehensive 
and luminous statement of all the relevant phenomena pre- 
sented by ancient and modern, civilised and savage, com- 
munities. The present sketch is intended only to indicate 
certain results that have been achieved, to glance at some 
current hypotheses, and to call attention to a few important 
questions which the comparative and inductive method may 
hope to solve. 

As regards its area, we find that it has been very widely 
prevalent, but we must not therefore assume it to be a uni- 
versal phenomenon of every society in a certain stage of 
culture. We find it attested abundantly, not only of many 



415 



416 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

existing savages, but also of the Mongolian and some Semitic 
races, of the earlier Mediterranean peoples, of the pre- Spanish 
civilisations of America, and of most of the Aryan stocks, 
Greeks, Italians, Persians, Indians, Slavs and, we may now 
add, Teutons ; for though, misled by a phrase in Tacitus, 
some of us used to think that our early Northern ancestors 
were too high-minded for hero-worship, yet the pre-Christian 
Icelandic saga reveals that they were at least occasionally 
capable of it. We have an interesting record of the chieftain 
Grim, " to whom sacrifices were made after he was dead, on 
account of the love men bore him." l But investigators have 
been prone to interpret much funeral ritual as proof of the 
worship of the dead, which by no means demands such inter- 
pretation. This worship, properly understood, is a special and 
sometimes relatively late product of the still more widely 
spread belief in the continuance and active consciousness of 
the departed spirit. Where this belief is strongly held it is 
likely to suggest many of the acts of posthumous honour that 
have been and still are performed at tombs all over the world. 
The theory of continuance carries with it the conviction that 
the departed need in the other world the things they loved 
and needed in this ; and the mere affection of father, brother, 
son, is sufficient to prompt the surviving relatives to fling 
food into the grave, weapons and ornaments, to throw in 
slaughtered animals or slaves, perhaps even to drag up the 
Viking's or the Sea Queen's ship and raise over it a mighty 
tumulus, or to give the sea-rover the splendid funeral of the 
blazing ship turned adrift on the sea. 

We must, in fact, carefully distinguish between " tendance " 
of the dead and actual worship. And the distinction is often 
difficult to draw. What is the most trustworthy criterion 
of worship? Not gifts, which we often fallaciously call 
" sacrifices," " victims," " oblations," while they may merely be 
tokens of respect and benevolence such as would often be 
proffered to the living, although sumptuous extravagance in 

1 Landrama Boc. 1, 6, 8 (Origines Islandicce, p. 30, cf. p. 337). 



ANCESTORS AND HEROES 417 

giving to the dead allows us to suspect that strength of 
feeling in the giver which engenders worship. Nor are 
mere acts of communion a sure criterion, such as the blood- 
covenant with the dead, the family meal eaten with the 
dead, Achilles' gift of his hair to his departed friend, an 
act prompted perhaps by the same passionate desire of 
communion which moves living lovers to interchange their 
hair in lockets, all such things may be conjoined with 
worship, yet are possible and are often practised with- 
out it. The surest criterion is prayer, accompanied by 
a feeling towards the dead as supranormal beings who are 
capable of supranormal acts. For example, nothing that 
is done in the funeral of Patroclus need be called worship ; 
but when the post- Homeric legend tells us that the 
ghost of Achilles appeared to the departing Achaeans and 
hindered the sailing of their ships, until they had sacrificed 
to him his betrothed and prayed to him for a favourable 
wind, this is shown to be real worship of the departed hero. 
Again, the worship must be regular and continuous if it is 
to be effective and to produce religious and social results of 
importance ; for the mere immediate fear of the newly 
departed soul may evoke prayer or acts of magic or religion 
which only aim at exorcising or banishing the dangerous 
ghost for ever to a distant realm, so that the living may be 
safe from his influence, 1 and the phenomenon at this embry- 
tic stage is of no great importance for civilisation. 

It is also desirable to mark the difference between worship of 
ancestors and worship of heroes ; both arise from the same 
stratum of belief concerning posthumous existence, both usually 

1 For instance, there seems a fleeting worship of the " sisa " or soul 
immediately after death among the Tshi-speaking people of West Africa 
(A. B. Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 152). An embryo form of ancestor- 
worship is also reported from the Kansas of North America ; food is given 
to the spirit with entreaties to let the living alone, a prayer or incantation is 
pronounced over the dead such as " When you go, continue walking ; do not 
face this way again" (Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian 
Institute, 1899, pp. 420-421, 421). 

VOL. VIL No. 27 



418 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

demand ceremonies at tombs ; but the ancestor is revered as 
kinsman, as founder or progenitor of the tribe or family, the 
hero as a distinguished man who inspired such awe or affec- 
tion in life that his departed soul must be conceived as 
endowed with supranormal influence. A powerful ancestor, 
worshipped for a long period, is certain to be regarded as a 
hero, but the hero is not necessarily an ancestor. For the 
ancestor- cult must be confined to the particular tribe or 
family that possesses the tomb. The hero-cult is also tribal 
and local, and as a rule associated with a tomb in a particular 
locality, where his bones or ashes lie ; but he may have been 
so powerful that alien tribes in the vicinity may adopt his 
cult, though his local limitation is even then attested by the 
desire that will probably be strong in them to get posses- 
sion of his bones or some relic of him. The saints of the 
Mediterranean world and of Catholic Europe are to be 
regarded as de-localised heroes, having no tribal or family 
connections ; yet the various localities aspire to possess their 
relics, and saint-worship is more powerful if one has the 
saint's tomb in one's midst. Moreover, hero-cult can arise 
in a less fixed and settled condition of society than that 
in which ancestor-cult is likely to develop ; and finally, the 
ethos that comes to attach to either may differ in quality and 
effect. 

The formative influences and external conditions favour- 
able to the development of ancestor-worship require careful 
consideration and extended study, for which the data have not 
yet been fully collected. Though its germs may be found 
in the unsettled migratory period, the hunting and pastoral 
stages of society, it is not likely to acquire power until the 
community has settled on the land in the agricultural life, and 
the various families have permanent plots in which the family 
graves may be maintained and safeguarded. It has also been 
observed 1 that society living under the matrilinear system is 
less likely to develop organised ancestor-worship than the 

1 Fide Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kumai, pp. 110-111, 





ANCESTORS AND HEROES 419 

patrilinear community, and we may assign two reasons for 
this ; in the first place, the society that counts descent through 
the female, being usually exogamous, does not tend to the 
concentration of the family in one place ; and secondly, the 
soul of the ancestress possesses less " virtue," " mana," 
" orenda " to use the Melanesian or North American Indian's 
terms than that of the male chief, for power is in the hands 
of the males in both forms of society. Therefore, as a matter 
of fact, the worship of female ancestors is exceedingly rare, 
while the cult of heroines is more common, though immeasur- 
ably less common than the cult of heroes. A matrilinear 
society may worship its king after his death, but as hero or 

not as ancestor. 

Given, then, a settled family system, which might engender 
strong sense of family union, we may imagine the gradual 
cess whereby the worship of ancestors developed. The 
family bring annual gifts to the grave, the praise of the 
ancestor is recited or his achievements danced in mimetic 
dances, and for a time this may be tendance only, inspired both 
by affection and fear of offending the dead ; but if it has been 
maintained through several generations, affection will pass 
away into awe, the inevitable belief will arise that a spirit 
which has held that grave and been tended with such cere- 
monies for so long a period must be of supereminent power, 
and tendance will pass into real worship. Therefore, when we 
find, as not infrequently in Greece, that an ancient grave has 
been tended for many centuries, we are sure of the religious 
significance of the ceremonies. One psychologic motive, active 
at the beginning of the process, may be assumed to be affection ; 
and this feeling towards the dead is found at every stage of 
culture. But another more prevalent and still more effective 
motive sometimes wrongly regarded as the sole one * is fear, 

t 1 E.g. by Karsten, in a recent monograph on The Origin of Worship. Yet he 
tes (p. 39) the statement of Miss Mary Kingsley West African Studies, 
pp. 131-2 that the ancestor-spirits are called by the negroes of West Africa 
"the well-disposed ones" ; and other evidence is not wanting. 






420 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the aboriginal fear of death and of the dead, as of something 
weird and magically infectious, which has inspired a large part 
of animistic and personal religion, and from which only the 
lowest and the highest human intellects appear able to escape. 
In much of the ritual associated with All Souls festivals, the 
two motives appear intermixed ; the dead are affectionately 
invited to the family feast, but precautions are taken against 
infection, and the souls may be firmly, though politely, 
requested to depart at the close. 

It is probable that fear has been more operative in en- 
gendering cults of heroes than of ancestors ; for the well-cared- 
for ghost of the local patriarch is likely to be mild and 
beneficent to his family, but the hero may have been a 
distinguished and dangerous stranger, feared in this life and 
still more to be feared after death : and many of the hero-cults 
of Greece were instituted to appease the dangerous souls of 
those who had been wrongfully slain. Yet here also we must 
reckon with the motive of gratitude prompting to the worship 
of benefactors. 

Among the influences favourable or unfavourable to the 
prevalence of worship of the dead, we must consider the nature 
of the general religion of the society. It is not likely to 
flourish under a rigid monotheism, which forbids the multi- 
plication of divine personages, and which does not countenance 
the belief in divine incarnations ; thus it is alien to orthodox 
Judaism and Moslemism, though some Moslem tribes may 
have in this respect lapsed into heathenism and adopted 
certain Syrian cults of Christian saints. 1 Its most fertile 
soil is evidently polytheism, and we can study its laws of 
causation most favourably in ancient Greece and modern India. 
And in the former country we note certain phenomena in the 
higher religion which engendered certain cults of heroes and 
may have assisted the growth of hero-worship in general. Of 

1 Vide S. J. Curtiss, " Spuren der altsemitischen Religion in den Mittel- 
punkten des Islam und des Christenthums in Syrien," Abhandl. d. ii. Internet, 
Congr. f. Religion sgesch., Basel, 154. 



the manii 



ANCESTORS AND HEROES 421 



e manifold crowd of divine beings, some sink from the 
position of high gods, and become regarded and worshipped 
as heroes, with legends of human achievements attaching to 
them ; or the descriptive epithet of a deity becomes detached, 
its proper denotation lost, and it is interpreted as the name 
of a mythical " heroic " man or woman. We have examples of 
this process in the evolution of such " heroic " figures as 
" Trophonios," " Eubouleus," " Iphigeneia." And the process 
was all the more natural when the god belonged to the under- 
world and was worshipped with " chthonian " rites in an 
underground shrine, which could easily be mistaken for the 
tomb of a buried mortal. But the observation that faded 
deities often degenerate into heroes and heroines has led to 
the prevalence of a very narrow theory, especially among 
Continental scholars, that all mythic heroes or heroines are 
only deities in disguise ; and to the corollary that all saga is 
merely secularised te/oos Xdyos or ritual-legend. This blind- 
ness to the many strands in the rich web of saga has wrought 
as much havoc as the ardent sun-myth worship of the older 
generation of scholars. In considering the sources of ancestor- 
and hero-cult, we must now readmit among the verce causes 
the old hypothesis of Euhemerus, to which the mere suspicion 
of adherence was enough not long ago to put one outside the 
pale of science ; we must allow, in fact, that many of these 
" mythic " ancestors and heroes were real men, worshipped 
after their death as real founders of families or dynasties or 
eminent leaders of the tribe. For modern anthropology has 
given abundant proof that this process of deifying or 

teroising " actual men and women is, or has been recently, 
work among many modern societies as cultured as those 
of Japan, China, and India, and as primitive as certain African 
tribes. Sir Alfred Lyall, in his fascinating Asiatic Studies, 
has collected for us many piquant examples. And a more 
recent instance may be quoted that is better than any that 
Euhemerus could have been aware of; Kibuka, the war-god 
of the Baganda, is known to have been a real man of striking 



422 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

character about a hundred years ago, and his divine bones 
now repose in the Museum of Cambridge. 1 Dr Frazer has 
collected for us much evidence concerning the human divine- 
incarnation, the priest-king ; and if such men were regarded 
as semi-divine in life, it would naturally happen in many cases 
that their ghosts would receive worship. 

It is also to be considered that the worship of the dead is 
partly dependent on eschatological theories or the ideas that 
happen to be current concerning the condition and the abode 
of the departed spirit. Thus in Homer's poems, that picture 
the soul as a helpless tenement of a far-off world, there is deep 
pity and affection shown to the departed shade, but scarcely a 
hint of worship. Again, in Egypt, where the tendance of the 
dead reached a pitch of elaborateness unexampled elsewhere, 
there appears to have been little, if any, direct worship of the 
departed, except occasionally of the departed king ; for the 
object of all the solicitude bestowed upon the mummy was to 
convoy the soul safely away through the perils of the under- 
world to the realm of Osiris, and to secure its future re- 
incarnation. And it is obvious that the early eschatology 
and the highest religious dogma of orthodox Christianity 
was adverse to the cult of the dead, though saint- cult 
came to be accepted as a compromise with a too powerful 
paganism. In fact, a flourishing and vigorous ghost-worship 
is more to be expected, when the ghost is supposed to reside 
in or near the tomb, whence it can be evoked by prayer or 
spell. Yet there is nothing in which there is apt to be more 
inconsistency than in the relation between our eschatologic 
beliefs and our feelings and behaviour towards the dead. 

It is often supposed that the different modes of disposing 
of the body, cremation and inhumation, express different 
beliefs concerning the posthumous state and will react upon 
our conduct towards the spirits. But, so far as I have been 
able to collect and interpret the facts, I can discover no con- 
sistency in them. Among certain African tribes cremation is 

1 Vide Man, November 1907. 



ANCESTORS AND HEROES 423 

said to be used to destroy the evil influence of the ghost ; * 
and in an Icelandic saga we hear of a great chief at his urgent 
request being buried under the threshold of his house, where, 
however, his ghost so plagued his family that they were 
obliged to exhume his body and send it out on a burning ship 
to sea. On the other hand, in India and elsewhere, the bodies 
of those who died in infancy, or women who died in childbirth, 
whose ghosts were particularly to be feared, were not allowed 
to be burned. Looking at the early Greek custom, we are 
tempted to believe that the Homeric age if Homer can be 
regarded as its spokesman was happily indifferent to the 
terrors of the shadowy world, and that this freedom may have 
been connected with the custom of cremation. But the Greeks 
of the post-Homeric age, among whom cremation was still 
customary, were abnormally sensitive to ghost-superstition. 
It appears, in fact, that the same feelings towards the departed 
soul, whether of affection or terror or both combined, and the 
same belief as to its condition and destiny, have been found 
and are consistent with either system of disposal of the body ; 2 
but that, on the whole, inhumation is more likely to generate 

Epire- imagination in morbid temperaments. 
1 religious phenomenon of such immemorial antiquity and 
3 prevalence, and of so close association with certain social 
institutions, is certain to have left a deep imprint on advanced 
ethic and religion or on the imagination that fosters and 
colours these. It is in the religious sphere where its influence 
is most obvious and traceable. Few scientific students are, 
indeed, now under the illusion of Herbert Spencer that 
ancestor- and hero-worship is the source of all religion. There 
is no one key to the mystery of religious origins. But the 
iew that religion, which has been nourished by many springs, 

1 E.g. " Among the Ewe People," Archiv fur Religionsmssenschaft, 1904, 
108. 

2 The Mycenaean world, unlike the later Greek, appear to have often 
buried their dead within their city wall, and may therefore be supposed to 
have been healthy-minded in respect of ghost terrors. 



424 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

has drawn much from this particular one, can be proved, or at 
least reasonably believed. 

Looking first at the cruder forms, we can observe how the 
belief in the world of ghosts, as it developed in the lower 
races, has impregnated certain systems of totemism and 
certain forms of animism. According to recent observation 
of the Bantus of South-Eastern Africa, their totemism is 
grounded on the belief that the spirits of the dead visited their 
friends and descendants in the form of animals. Each tribe 
regarded some particular animal as the one selected by the 
ghosts of its kindred, and therefore looked upon it as sacred. 
And Dr Frazer, who quotes this statement, 1 draws the natural 
conclusion that here at least totemism must be looked upon as 
a species of ancestor- worship ; at the same time he rightly 
cautions us against believing that totemism everywhere was of 
this origin. And no doubt the widespread worship of animals 
was often wholly independent of totemism or of any beliefs 
concerning the ancestral ghost ; but we have the right to 
suppose that one particular form of it, the snake-worship 
prevalent in the " Minoan " civilisation, among some com- 
munities of later Greece, and in modern Africa, owed much to 
the well-attested superstition that the ancestor-soul haunted 
the family grave or the family dwelling in the form of a snake. 
Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of West Africa, a chiefs 
" noli " or soul often becomes the family protector and is 
propitiated as a minor god ; and one of these souls was believed 
to have taken up its abode in an iguana, and hence iguanas 
were allowed free entry into the house and regarded as tutelary 
divinities. 2 Animism also has very close ties with the world 
of ghosts, who may be supposed to be operative in the wind 
and storm or in the growth of crops. An interesting example 
of this in one of the more advanced religions is the cult of the 
Tritopatores at Athens. The name denotes " ancestors in the 

1 From Mr G. M'Call Theal's "Records of South-Eastern Africa/' Man, 
1901, p. 135. 

2 A. B. Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples, p. 111. 



ANCESTORS AND HEROES 425 

ird (i.e. remote) degree," and it may be that each of the 
Attic gentes possessed its special cult of TpiroTrdr^p ; they were 
prayed to for offspring on the occasion of marriage, and yet, 
according to an ancient and authoritative interpretation, they 
were regarded as deities of the wind. Primitive thought for 
obvious reasons tends to associate the departed spirit with the 
wind, and this natural power is sometimes regarded as the 
source of birth and life, the philosophy of Greek orphism 
agreeing in this as in other respects with savage belief. 
Another very important product of early animistic religion is 
the sanctity of the household hearth, which sometimes leads to 
the ritual of maintaining the hearth-fire of the chief or king 
perpetually. And as the hearth is the strongest centre of 
attraction for family life and family cult, we should expect 
is ritual to associate to itself ideas drawn from the sphere of 
cestor- worship : and of this we have certain examples. One 
the most striking has been reported from New Zealand, 
d more recently attention has been called to the intimate 
nnection in Chinese ritual between the souls of the departed 
embers of the family and the cult of the cook-god of the 
hearth. 1 

These and similar facts suggest, not that animism arose 
from the belief in family spirits or their worship, but that it 
has received many contributions and much strength from that 
source. And we may surmise that the world of animistic 
belief would be relieved in some degree of its terrifying and 
hostile character as the conviction grew that the spirit in the 
tree or the wind or the wild beast was one that was bound by 
close ties to the human family. 2 

We may now consider the influence of this system of 
orship in the sphere of the advanced religions. It is easy 
1 Frazer, Journal of Philology, xiv. p. 168 (the likeness of a human being, 
supposed ancestor, carved on the pillar behind the fireplace), cf. pp. 169-171. 
Archiv fur Religionsrvissenschaft, 1907, pp. 2426. 

2 Vide Pram. Arch. f. Religionswiss., 1906, p. 474 (the Cora Indians 
believe that the spirits of the dead are operative in the cloud and in the wild 
beast). 



426 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

to enumerate certain institutions or ceremonies found in 
most of these, which are known to be a tradition or a deposit 
from the cult of souls, or from a belief in the divinity of living 
men ; the higher dogma may tolerate them or assimilate them 
or protest against them ; in any case they show a strange 
power of surviving. Thus the festival of All Souls, almost 
universal in Europe and found also in China, Japan, ancient 
Egypt and Greece, and many other communities, has been 
reconciled without difficulty to our orthodox religion ; for 
most of the "All Souls " ceremonies in Europe imply no real 
worship of the dead, but affectionate tendance and loving 
commemoration ; but it may well have been otherwise in 
pre-Christian Europe, and is otherwise in backward parts of 
Russia at this day, where the dead in return for the offerings 
are supplicated to guard and foster the family and crops. 
" Ye spirits of the long departed, guard and preserve us well. 
Make none of us cripples. Send no plagues upon us. Cause 
the corn, the wine, and the food to prosper with us." ] Another 
more questionable legacy to Christendom from the same source 
is a form of fetichism, the magic use of amulets or " relics." 
Fetichism in itself, like animism, may be and often is entirely 
independent of the cult of souls ; but when the worship of heroes 
and ancestors has developed, it attaches to itself a very powerful 
fetichistic superstition, in that it ascribes a magical or divine 
power to the bones or relics of the departed great one, and 
the religious feeling concerning " relics " and the traffic in 
them has troubled the higher religion of Europe. 

But the worst indictment that the history of civilisation 
must bring against the religious institution that we are con- 
sidering, is that it has undoubtedly tended to perpetuate, 
and in places has even suggested, the practice of human 
sacrifice. This is not the place to discuss the origin of this 
repellent rite. There are reasons that might be urged against 
the theory that the worship of the higher gods generally 

1 Prayer of the Votiaks of Russia before Palm-Sunday, quoted by Frazer, 
Adorns, Attis, Osiris, p. 252. 






ANCESTORS AND HEROES 427 



received it from the ritual common in ancestor- worship. 1 Yet 
this latter, in which it was very prevalent, may often have 
engrafted it upon the former. And we may understand why 
the human victim might seem often more appropriate to the 
buried ancestor or hero than to the higher god ; for the 
departed chief would need slaves or brides ; and again, the 
belief might prevail that the spirit could only maintain its 
power in the decaying skeleton if this was periodically warmed 
and vitalised with human blood. 2 At all events, whatever is 
the true explanation, we find in classical Greece that long 
after the higher religious conscience had revolted against ritual- 
murder, it might still be found necessary to gratify the blood- 
thirsty ghost in this evil fashion. 

Apart also from any special deleterious institution which 
ay be only occasionally found and is not inevitable, the 
meral influence of the cult of heroes and ancestors may 
sometimes prove fatal to the full development and efficacy 
of a higher creed. How far this has been so in parts of 
Christendom must be left to each one's experience to decide. 
Recent reports of scientific travellers have attested that it 
is tending to obliterate the higher teaching of Islam in Syria 
and the ideal of Buddhism in Tibet. Its tendency is always 
polytheistic, and therefore it flourished and ripened best on 
the soil of Greece. A strong monotheism must be its 
antagonist, and by a true instinct it was abhorred by the 
teachers of Judaism. 

Yet it may claim to have contributed certain ideas which 
have been turned to great account by the higher religions. 

Kself being the expression of the belief that the mortal body 
uld be the habitation of a divine or semi-divine spirit, it has 
assisted to propagate the conception of divine incarnation, 
which is still the ruling idea of a dominant world-religion ; 

1 This seems to be held by Sir Alfred Lyall in his Asiatic Studies, p. 287, 
etc., " Natural Religion in India." 

2 Fide Ellis, Tshi-speaking People, p. 162 (the Ashanti king worshipped as 
ancestor-hero and his skeleton washed with human blood). 



428 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

it has gratified the human craving for mediators between God 
and man, and has softened the austerity of rigid monotheism 
by peopling the unseen with a multitude of good spirits, 
watchers and guardians of human life. More important still 
would have been its achievement if we could prove what at 
least we have good right to surmise, that it diffused and 
strengthened the conception of the fatherhood of God. The 
close association between this aspect of the divinity and the 
feeling towards the spirit of the worshipped ancestor, the 
father of his tribe, is obvious ; yet the evidence does not 
prove that in the evolution of religion the latter was the 
parent of that conception. For it has been observed by 
recent anthropological inquiry that many savage communi- 
ties, who have not developed ancestor-worship, possess a belief 
in a high and kindly god, and are sometimes in the habit 
of applying to him terms of human relationship, " father " or 
grandfather " ; such being the only terms of flattery and 
endearment in a state of society where the only friendly tie 
is kinship. 1 But at least we have reason to believe that the 
feeling of the divinity of ancestors quickened and intensified 
the feeling of the ancestral-paternal character of the high 
God. We cannot exemplify this from the religion of Jahve', 
which presents so vividly the paternal aspect of God and His 
ancestral relations with the community, for the ideal of this 
religion had discarded ancestor-worship, which lay probably 
in the background of the people of Israel ; but we may draw 
sufficient illustration from the religions of Egypt and Greece. 
The ritual of the dead in the former country was a vital force 
in the popular religion, and the well-tended dead became 
identified with Osiris ; this, we may imagine, would pro- 
foundly affect the inward religious sense of the Godhead, and 
strengthen the feeling of human kinship with the divine. In 
Greece the process of evolution and influence is clearer still, 
the strongly developed cult of ancestors reflects its rays upon 

1 Cf. Peabody Museum Reports, vol. iii. p. 207 (natural objects addressed as 
relations by North American Indians). 



ANCESTORS AND HEROES 429 



the image of the high god, Zeus becomes OaTpwos the 
ancestor, and takes upon himself the functions of the great 
ancestral spirit, the guardianship of the family right, and the 
kindred organisations of the tribe. 

Finally, one phenomenon of great moment in the ritual 
of mystic religion, the sacramental meal or communion 
with the divinity, may be shown to have been generated in 
part by ideas belonging to the family-cult of ancestors. As 
the kinsmen eat together, so at times they take a solemn 
meal with the departed spirits, to renew the bond of kinship ; 
then, when the deity has come to be regarded prominently 
as a kinsman of the tribe, it is natural for the tribesmen to 
solemnise a periodic meal with their god. The evolution 
of the more mystic forms of sacrament from this practice 
has been traced out by Professor Robertson Smith in his 
Religion of the Semites. 

It is fair, then, summarily to state that this lower religious 
system that we are considering, while at times it may choke 
the growth of a higher, has deposited seeds of great vitality, 
which have fructified into pregnant concepts of advanced 
theology. 

In the social and legal sphere we may discern its influence, 
both in past time and in the present, shaping certain rules of 
conduct and assisting certain growths of early law. It has 
served especially as the highest sanction of the rights and 
duties of family life; and the religions and social records of 
Rome, Greece, India, Egypt, and China attest the force of its 
operation. As if Nature, unaided by spiritual sanction, were 
too weak to secure the primary end of society, self-preserva- 
tion, ancestor- worship promulgates the law of the continuance 
of the family as a religious duty to observe. A man must 
beget lawful children in order to maintain the irpoyoviKa ie/>a, 
[ " the rites of his ancestors," and the ritual service of the dead ; 
heirs of his own body failing, he must adopt a son ; even in 
uncultured races the belief has been found that the childless 
man will be punished after death for his non-fulfilment of the 



430 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

ancestral tribal law. The great events of the human family, 
birth, marriage, death, are all consecrated by the ceremonies 
of the higher religions, but from time immemorial they have 
been coloured by religious feelings which belong to savage 
spiritual consciousness ; for they all appear weird and awful to 
the primitive mind, being occasions when the ghosts or spirits 
are particularly active and powerfully present. Only where we 
find no superstition concerning ghosts, no belief in a future 
life, do we find no ceremonies at all at birth, marriage, and 
death. 1 Then when ancestor-cult is established, it may 
assuage and give more rational direction to the primitive 
animistic awe ; the ancestors are the kindly ghosts who are 
chiefly concerned at and must be duly considered at these 
times. Finally, if a higher religion absorbs the ancestor-cult, 
it adopts in the main the same religious laws and same morality 
of the family, however much it may afterwards modify these. 

Many minor family ceremonies may be traceable to the 
same belief in the power of the ancestral spirits and in their 
close association with the household. The new-born child 
is often believed to be a reincarnation of one of these ; and 
this doctrine of the transmigration of the ancestral soul, a 
religious counterpart to the modern doctrine of inherited 
qualities, will prompt the giving to the child the name of that 
particular ancestor ; this accounts for the custom prevalent at 
Athens of naming the child after the dead grandfather. For 
a name is more than a word, it is a powerful charm that 
evokes spirit, and our modern practice of giving family names 
is a faint reflex of an ancient world- wide superstition. On the 
other hand, in certain wild tribes the name of the deceased 
member of the family is so sacred that no one may utter it, 
and for a long time no one may bear it, probably through fear 
of evoking the ghost. 2 

Ancestor-worship and the veneration of the departed 

1 An interesting example has been recently quoted from the Malay 
Peninsula, AnthropoL Journ., 1907, p. 293. 

2 Vide AnthropoL Journ., 1907, p. 310. 




ANCESTORS AND HEROES 431 

spirit have also powerfully affected the evolution of the 
law concerning homicide. They transform into a religious 
duty what the natural primitive feeling of man is sufficient 
by itself to suggest, the revenge of a kinsman's murder ; 
the blood-feud becomes a debt that one owes to the in- 
jured ghost. At a rude stage of society this institution has 
its advantages ; it safeguards the individual to some extent 
and deepens the sense of public responsibility attaching to 
casual homicide, but it thwarts the development of a more 
equitable law and sometimes paralyses its action. For a long 
time the power of the family and the respect for the vindictive 
ghost may hinder proper consideration being paid to pleas of 
accidental or justifiable homicide ; we have the clearest 
examples of this in Attic law, as I have shown elsewhere. 1 
And the same superstition deeply tinged, if it did not actually 
evoke, the Greek cult of the Erinyes, who stand for the power 
of the dead man's curse, remorselessly pursuing the slayer with 
no respect to equity, and who in the great drama of ^Eschylus 
are champions of barbaric as against civilised justice. Yet 
this psychic cause, the fear of the wrath of the ghost, little as 
it seemed likely to contribute anything to civilisation, must be 
reckoned, at least in Greece, among the influences that at last 
evolved the conception of murder as a sin against the whole 
state ; the matter could no longer remain an affair of the 
kindred only, if that wrath might fall upon the whole land. 
And it is a noteworthy fact that Athens attained to more 
civilised law concerning murder at the period when the worship 
of the dead was strongest and the reverential awe with which 
they were regarded was at its height. 

It is possible that the development of the social institution 
of private ownership of land was in some communities assisted 
and sanctioned by the organisation of the cult at the grave, 
for the ancestral spirit dwelling in the earth could establish a 
tapu and thus support the family's claim. Roman law con- 
cerning the conveyance of land reserved to the original owner 

1 Evolution of Religion, pp. 140-152. 



432 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the right of access to the family tomb. And in certain parts 
of England the view still prevails that a funeral procession 
moving along a certain path establishes there a right of way 
henceforth. Finally, in the laws concerning inheritance and 
testaments, the influence may be traced of that belief from 
which ancestor- worship has sprung, the belief in the power of 
the departed spirit, who claims his share in the property and 
whose " will " must be respected. 1 

The indebtedness of our civilisation to this ancient religion 
will be greater than we have hitherto admitted, if the recent 
theory could be proved that Greek tragedy arose in yearly 
ceremonies at the graves of heroes or ancestors. Examples 
may be found of commemorative mimetic dances at the tomb 
being instituted to please or appease the ghost ; and we know 
that in Greece the worship of the Sicyonic hero Adrastus was 
celebrated with mournful choruses, setting forth probably his 
"tragic" life and death. A real tragic drama could have arisen 
on this foundation. If it really did so arise in Greece, as 
Professor Ridge way has recently argued, it was an ancient 
funeral ritual that has given us ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and even 
Shakespeare. But this new theory of the evolution of the 
greatest growth of literature presents certain difficulties which 
cannot here be discussed. 

Our concluding question must be, what influence this 
worship has exercised at various times upon the moral 
standard and moral practice of the individual and the com- 
munity. Such questions are always most difficult and the 
answers are always vague, because we have no scientifically 
drawn moral statistics of even our own age, still less can we 
hope to have them for the past. In regard to the past we 
must depend on surmises from a few isolated statements ; in 
regard to the present we can observe those communities where 
this religion is still a living force, and we may distinguish 
between the more backward, where the feeling of fear of the 

1 Vide Brunner, " Das rechtliche Fortleben der Toten bei den Germanen," 
Deutsche Monatschrift, 1 907. 



ANCESTORS AND HEROES 433 

spirit-world predominates, and the more cultured, where this is 
blent with emotions of affection and veneration. One effect 
of these beliefs upon the primitive social temperament that we 
may note is a strong tendency towards conservatism of social 
customs ; the ghosts are supposed to resent novelty and are the 
guardians of the ancient order of things, and the primitive 
man, in his fear of the ancestral spirits, is likely to maintain 
with more earnestness than the man of modern society, "What 
was good enough for my grandfather is good enough for me." 
Ghost- worship, then, may be a force acting against progress. 
But when the family has attained a more civilised life and 
higher stages of feeling, then the ancestor becomes the pro- 
tector of the higher family law ; the Roman son who injured 
his father, the Roman husband who sold his wife, fell under 
the wrath of the family spirits. 1 And the same spiritual 
sanction is invoked by Plato for the duty of showing mercy to 
orphans. 2 Doubtless the best and most direct result of the 
family-worship at graves has been the increase of family 
affection and the sense of union. It is significant that at 
Rome the ritual in which the "di parentales," the ancestral 
spirits, were worshipped was immediately followed by the 
" Carista," the family festival of the living, charmingly 
described by Ovid ; of this Mr Warde Fowler well says, 3 " It 
was a kind of love-feast of the family, and gives a momentary 
glimpse of the gentler side of Roman family life. All quarrels 
were to be forgotten in a general harmony ; no guilty or cruel 
member may be present." And we cannot doubt that the 
fashion which came to prevail in later Greece of forming 
"thiasoi" or brotherhoods to maintain the worship of the 
defunct, whether as hero or kinsman, must have constituted a 
powerful social bond. 

Nor is the element of fear, which is so dominant in the 
primitive mind touching the world of spirits, wholly unpro- 

1 See Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Rbmer, p. 187. Plutarch,, Vit. 
Rom., 22. 

2 Laws, 927 B. 3 Roman Festivals, p. 309. 

VOL. VII. No. 2. 28 



434 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

ductive for the growth of a moral sense. For it is closely 
associated with the deep sense of the impurity of death, from 
which has sprung a rigid code of asceticism imposing upon the 
primitive society severe self-control on the occurrence of a 
death and for some time after the funeral. 1 Quarrelling is 
specially forbidden at such seasons, and chastity enjoined ; 
and from the same source arises our mild rule of charity, to 
speak well of the dead. 

The potential value of hero-worship for general social 
morality depends entirely on the grounds of the "canonisa- 
tion." In Greece the institution was vulgarised by the 
" heroising " of athletes, and one or two Greek writers speak 
as though the heroes were altogether " evil spirits," though 
this is merely an exaggeration of a certain popular terror. In 
early and mediaeval Christendom, as at times in China and 
India, 2 celibacy and asceticism have won for the deceased the 
status of the saint ; and here we see saint-worship acting 
against social morality and against its own "congener," the 
worship of the ancestor. On the other hand, the classical 
examples of the heroic honours paid to the patriots who fell 
on the battlefield, as the slain warriors at Platsea, to the great 
poets, philosophers and men of science of Greece, give us 
ground for believing that the system afforded powerful 
stimulus to social effort and sacrifice, for it appealed to the 
religious hopes of the credulous, and at least to the vanity of 
the sceptical; according to the story of the foundation of 
Antioch, the promise of the posthumous honours of canonisa- 
tion was enough to induce a high-born maiden to offer herself 
a willing sacrifice for the prosperity of the new state. 

But to test the moral quality of this worship among 
advanced peoples, we have the examples drawn from great 
contemporary societies. We know how it is embedded in the 
state-craft and state- morality of China and Japan ; we may 
read certain eloquent passages in Dr Frazer concerning the 

1 Vide my Evolution of Religion, p. 113. 

2 Vide Lyall, Asiatic Studies, p. 125. 



ANCESTORS AND HEROES 485 

Japanese Feast of Lanterns, to gain an impression of the 
loving-kindness and grace with which they celebrate the 
worship of the family spirits. 1 The national stimulus that it 
supplies to this people is attested by the great records of the 
recent war ; and in no other community of man does its 
patriotic appeal ever appear to have been so strong. Its power 
in private life, where it is likely to be associated with an 
aristocratic sensitiveness to honour and shame, is strangely 
exhibited in a narrative by Lafcadio Hearn, 2 of such mastery 
that the quotation may be allowed : " The other day in Najano 
a politician told a treacherous lie. Whereupon his wife robed 
herself all in white, as those are robed who are about to journey 
to the world of ghosts, and purified her lips according to the 
holy rite, and taking from the store-room an ancient family 
sword, thereupon slew herself. And she left a letter, re- 
gretting that she had but one life to give in expiation of the 
shame and the wrong of that lie. And the people do now 
worship at her grave, and strew flowers thereupon, and pray 
for daughters with hearts as brave." Truly a greater than 
Alcestis was here ; and we can understand why the same 
writer should say, in another place, " I think we Occidentals 
have yet to learn the worship of ancestors." 3 The national 
service of our people might be hereby quickened, but intel- 
lectual and religious reasons seem to rule out the suggestion. 
Yet our civilisation owes much to these discarded beliefs, and 
to their ancient appeal certain cells of our consciousness still 
dntly respond. 

LEWIS R. FARNELL. 

OXFORD. 

1 Vide Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, new edition. 

2 Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 88. 76., p. 28. 



DISCUSSIONS 

N.B. The contributions under this heading refer to matters previously 
treated in the "Hibbert Journal." Reviews of books are not open 
to discussion. Criticism of any article will, as a rule, be limited to a 
single issue of the Journal. The discussion ends with a reply from 
the original writer. Erf. 

HOW MAY CHRISTIANITY BE DEFENDED TO-DAY ? 

(Hibbert Journal, October 1908, p. 152.) 

THIS frank adoption of the attitudes of " Apology " and " Defence," so 
often and curiously confounded, suggests some reflections usually over- 
looked. In appealing to a generally cultivated audience we are too apt to 
use leading terms which for them have sub-conscious or sub-attentive 
associations tending to confuse the issue. 

It may be suggested, from this point of view, that the first thing a 
writer on religion has to do is to abandon and proscribe the term 
Apologetic, cease to be an apologist, and also give up the attitude of 
defence. The former term has undergone a vitiating change of meaning, 
and the latter insults his theme. He must, in the religious and especially 
in the Christian contest, take the offensive or surrender. 

The Apologist, we are here told, must first show what is the highest 
thing a man can do. " If he cannot show this, his apologetic is a failure." 
But in ordinary parlance that is not at all his business, which is to express 
regret for his conduct, or, on the other hand, to vindicate his position. At 
present, in fact, the term " apology " constantly covers the latter ground. 
While defending its motive we " apologise " for an intrusion, or we make a 
successful "apology" for our (doubtful) contention. In either sense it 
must therefore always, in the religious sphere, be a failure. At best it 
secures toleration, resulting on pardon or excuse for wrong, defect, or 
injury in act or word. Do we want men to accept our apology for the 
misdeed or mistake of religion, and above all, of Christ ? Or do we want 
them to suppose that what ought to be obviously man's highest instinct 
needs defence ? Professor M'Giffert insists that with a prevailing modern 
type of disbelief Christian faith has nothing to do, since it " moves wholly 
in another realm, the realm of ethical values." This at least undermines 
the popular confusion between belief and faith. The Christian faith leaves 
"belief" in its proper place, that of supposition or assumption. It takes 

436 




DISCUSSIONS 437 

its own, that of fidelity to the death, towards the Best it knows. The 
ideals really precious to us here and now and in growing experience are in 
line with and not opposed to the universe of which we are beginning to 
learn the nature and the order. Because "divinity is at the heart of 
things, and they themselves are divine,"" apology to men who realise the 
true value of this ideal becomes a tragical farce. 

It may be said that the word is used in a technical sense quite different 
from the popular one. But most of us are more swayed by current usage 
in speech than we know. Of course, if we are prepared to prohibit 
throughout elementary as well as university teaching the toleration of 
intolerable and really wanton misuse of important terms like apology, 
imitation, or phenomenon, serious writers will be left free to use them in 
the only fitting senses, and the gain will be great. But unfortunately 
this plain piece of common sense is still outside our practical programme. 
In this very case, the stress laid on the inculcation of the supreme human 
ideals in education, betrays the indirect mischief of the use of the term 
Apology. You cannot implant the highest ideals except in a secondary 
sense, as you implant or inculcate the conventions of your own form of civilisa- 
tion for the sake of economy or refinement in social function. Imposed 
ideals either tend to produce fanatics or else are a painting of the lily. 

We are rightly reminded of the consecration of a life which humbly 
and faithfully not apologetically or credulously follows the divinely 
ideal life. But the religious man must be content to welcome here the 
re-interpretation of a divine ideal. His present interpretation fatally 
tolerates the method of apology for the purest heritage of mankind, for 
the highest of human aims. And he must give up defending, to men of 
good will, that very Good Will embodied, concentrated, operative as 
religion in serving, through a true humility of faith, the interests both of 
conduct and of knowledge, both of devotion and of reason. 

VICTORIA WELBY. 



DR SCHILLER ON INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION. 

(Hibbert Journal, October 1908, p. 76.) 

I SUPPOSE that in the case of a philosophy like Humanism, wherein our 
judgments of the true are based upon affective states, which, as Ribot has 
well emphasised, do not know " the principles of contradiction " forming 
the basis of our intellectual life, an accusation of inconsistency would be 
meaningless and absurd. All this the new philosophy has swept away with 
the other rubbish of rationality. But a few Rip Van Winkles have still a 
lingering prejudice against what seems to them remarkably like a frivolous 
juggling with serious matters. 

In Dr Schiller's article in the October number, an article interesting 
and even brilliant, as are all the products of his pen, the assertions are 
made that the "common man" (i.e. the non-Humanist) subconsciously 



488 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

claims infallibility (p. 78), and that in his case " there must be war un- 
ceasingly and unsparingly upon earth until one and the same Truth, 
immutable, infallible, and absolute, is established upon it, and is seen and 
accepted by all without exception. Thus persecution becomes a duty and 
tolerance a crime 1 " (p. 79). " For all parties " (i.e. non-Humanists), continues 
Dr Schiller, " are in duty bound by their allegiance to absolute truth to 
wage war unflinchingly upon all views but their own, and wherever they can, 
to oppress, suppress, and persecute by all means in their power " (p. 81 ). 

I wish merely to point out that when Dr Schiller published his formal 
apologia for his philosophy (Humanism, 1903), he felt differently, and 
consequently thought differently. Discussing the hypothetical case of 
the progress of knowledge leading to disagreeable conclusions, he said : 
" As soon as the pursuit of truth was generally recognised to be practically 
noxious we should simply give it up. If its misguided votaries unkindly 
persisted in their diabolical pursuit of truth regardless of the consequences, 
they would be stamped out, as the Indian Government has stamped out 
the Thugs. Nor is this mere imagining. The thing has happened over 
and over again. All through the Middle Ages most branches of knowledge 
were under black suspicion as hostile to human welfare," etc. (p. 201). 

Dr Schiller then proceeds to give his approval to this mode of sup- 
pressing disagreeable conclusions. "And not only would this be done, 
but it would be an entirely reasonable thing to do in the case supposed. 
If the pursuit of knowledge really aggravated instead of relieving the 
burden of life, it would be irrational. . . . The alleged knowledge would 
be worse than useless, and we should fare better without it. ... And 
natural selection " (qucere, the murder of heretics and scientists ?) " would 
see to it that those did not survive who remained addicted to a futile and 
noxious pursuit. This, then, would be the worst that could happen : the 
frivolity and thoughtlessness of the day-fly might pay better than the 
deadly earnestness of the sage " (pp. 201-2). 

In view of the fact that, to the Humanist, what is for the time being 
" attractive and valuable and satisfying " is entitled to his allegiance, the 
foregoing is sinister enough, and to the " common man " would seem to 
suggest reserve in claiming that Humanism is necessarily the conspicuously 
tolerant philosophy. Indeed, that misguided person might argue that a 
Borgia, burning people for the sake of doctrines which he believed in only 
in the sense of their being " attractive and valuable and satisfying " to a 
hierarch who profited by them, was the true Humanist, and would have 
derived satisfaction from a perusal of Humanism. But let us rejoice that 
Dr Schiller now feels more humane sentiments to be more attractive, 
and has for the present abandoned an attitude, shared by only Professor 
Seeley, I believe, among modern English scholars 1 that of apologetic 
benevolence towards persecution for opinion's sake. 

THOMAS S. JEROMK. 
CAPRI, ITALY. 

1 Ecce Homo, cap. " Law of Resentment," adfinem. 



DISCUSSIONS 439 



PROFESSOR FLINDERS PETRIE ON "CONSTRAINT 
RESPECTING LIQUORS." 

(Hibbert Journal, July 1908, p. 782.) 

IN making application of his doctrine of " constraint " to the use of liquors 
(Hibbert Journal, July 1908), Professor Flinders Petrie has, it seems to me, 
fallen into some injurious errors. 

The ethical right and the legal justification of constraint respecting 
the use of liquors lie in "the public good," which is far more seriously 
endangered by the habit than Professor Flinders Petrie seems to be aware. 
He would undoubtedly admit that ninety-nine men have the right to con- 
strain the hundredth man from committing suicide by taking a quick 
poison. But have they not the right to restrain him from taking a slow 
poison that will end his life in five years ? And if they have the right to 
prevent sudden suicide, have they not also the right to prevent the condi- 
tions (created by the drink habit) which produce directly or indirectly a 
very large proportion of all suicides ? In fact, is it not the solemn duty of 

<iman society thus to protect itself and its members ? 
Professor Flinders Petrie would probably admit that Government has 
e right to prevent ten parents from striking their children, because one 
of the blows would make some child a lifelong cripple. But has it not 
an equal right to prevent parents from drinking whisky, because in more 
cases than one in ten the results are harmful to children ? He would 
probably admit that the people have the right to restrain a family from 
using water from a well polluted with typhoid germs, although only one 
person in ten in the neighbourhood might contract the disease in conse- 
quence, and only one in five of those sick might die. But have not 
the people an equal right to restrain men from using what causes more 
disease and death, infinitely more misery and degradation, than polluted 
water ? The legal right becomes here a public obligation. He would 
probably admit that the State has the right to prohibit men from investing 
their money in a lottery. But does not the State have an equal right to 
prohibit men, not only from wasting their money on liquors, but from using 
it in a way that incapacitates them for efficient citizenship ? Moreover, 
a few lotteries would not be a social pest inciting to crime and producing 
poverty comparable with the drink habit, nor would they be a political 
plague like the liquor traffic, which demoralises the making and the 
enforcing of laws. 

Professor Flinders Petrie argues against the application of" constraint " 
to the liquor problem on several grounds, three of which I will consider. 

(1) It destroys self-reliance. But do restrictive health and sanitary 
laws destroy self-reliance ? Do parental prohibitions of deadly poisons 
and vicious habits destroy self-reliance ? No greater ethical fallacy ever 
entered the mind of man than the assumption that liberty to get drunk 



440 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

produces self-reliance. One might as well argue that liberty to carry fire- 
arms makes people peaceable. Self-reliance is not the product of the wine 
cup or the whisky bottle. Common observation and scientific discovery 
prove that it is drink that destroys self-reliance. 

(2) It weakens character by precluding temptation. This is an old but 
fallacious argument which an appeal to the facts of life decisively disproves. 
May we not in all soberness ask : Are there not temptations enough in 
life without adding those of drink ? Moreover, if this is a sound argument, 
then, to develop character, we ought to invent new temptations : add opium, 
cocaine, and others the more the better! It does not follow that the 
normal man of the twentieth century must have alcohol because his 
ancestors craved stimulants : their thirst for blood is no warrant for us to 
kill ! That savages make bigger fools of themselves with drink than 
civilised men is surely no proof that the use of whisky develops character : 
why be a fool at all ? Again, if drink strengthens character, why not give 
the savage more ? The policy of " constraint " in Indian territory, 
America, has helped to save the American Indian, and these " Red-men " 
were themselves anxious to make prohibition a part of the constitution of 
the new state of Oklahoma. 

(3) " Constraint " tends to deceit and lawlessness in prohibition states. 
But is not all law met by deceit on the part of criminals ? The " deceit 
and lawlessness " to be found in our " prohibition states " is very largely 
intruded by those who live in "liquor communities." There would be 
little of this lawlessness were it not for brewers and distillers outside, who 
force themselves in every way upon these temperance states, having, un- 
fortunately, in their lawless operations, the support of the general Govern- 
ment. Is it right to hold prohibitionists in Portland responsible for the 
deceit inspired by the intemperate summer visitor from New York city, and 
for the lawlessness of the brewers of St Louis, who spend money lavishly to 
override the laws and corrupt the officials of Maine ? But even with this 
intruded lawlessness, the state of Maine is not what Professor Flinders 
Petrie would have us believe it to be. He has been misinformed by the 
apologists of the drink habit and the liquor traffic. In proportion to 
population, its criminal and pauper and lunacy records are shorter, while 
its per capita wealth and newspaper circulation are larger than in any other 
part of our country. One other decisive fact may be mentioned here: 
Maine contributes, in proportion to population, more names to Who's 
Who in America than the average for the nation, and twice as many as 
such states as New York and Pennsylvania ! 

It is certainly surprising to read the assertion by Professor Flinders 
Petrie, that the State has no right to prevent men from going off into a 
remote valley, where there are no women to be mauled and no children 
to be corrupted, and having " a glorious drunk " ! His argument is that 
we must not insist on " dry-nursing " for grown-up men ! But if this is 
justifiable, why may not men go off by themselves and indulge in gambling ? 
The simple fact is that the men who go oft' in this way soon come back 



DISCUSSIONS 441 

ie and bring results that are harmful to their communities. It is not 
ic same man who returns. He may not have mauled his wife, but he is 
all the more likely to do it because of that experience. His children may 
not have seen him drunk, but does it help them to know that he was on a 
debauch ? It is not " dry-nursing " for the State to prohibit men from 
wasting time and energy, money and strength, in debaucheries that are out 
of sight. Brutish revelry is not innocent because hidden in a distant 
valley : its harmful influence cannot be hidden. 

This temperance problem is, after all, not so much a mere matter of 
sentiment as a matter of science. The mighty wave of temperance 
agitation now sweeping around the world is a practical application of 
the discovery that alcohol, even in small quantities, is a "destroyer of 
life " : it is a movement for race-preservation. Even those who contend 
that alcohol has some food and medicinal values, under certain conditions, 
admit that, on the whole, as commonly used, it is destructive to life. 
Therefore, the awakened and instructed conscience of mankind is insisting 
that every possible preventive measure must be used, educational, social, 
and industrial ; that every possible means of protective nurture must be 
employed ; and that every possible method for saner and safer amusements 
must be instituted. But in this gigantic struggle there is also a place 
for stern and inexorable law. The State has a right to restrain and 
prohibit where religion cannot persuade nor education prevent. 

JOSEPH H. CROCKER. 
BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A. 



THE "JERAHMEEL THEORY." 



(Hibbert Journal, October 1908, p. 132.) 

To the article with the above title, in inverted commas, which he con- 
tributes to the October part of the Hibbert Journal, Dr Cheyne has added 
as a sub-title, " A mistaken name for a genuine thing." But surely this 
sub-title is itself a striking example of the error in logic known as petitw 
principii ! That the " thing " is " genuine " is what has to be proved. 

This Dr Cheyne once more essays to do, with all the ability and critical 
acumen of which he is a past master ; but notwithstanding, the writer in 
The Guardian 1 who says that all Dr Cheyne's persuasive powers are 
lavished in vain upon " an incredulous public," states what is undoubtedly 
correct. 

Since Dr Cheyne refers to a statement which I made in my recent book 
no less than three times 2 not without some suspicion of ironical surprise 

1 The Guardian, 21st October 1908. 

2 Hibbert Journal, October, p. 137 : " The newest writer on Biblical archaeology 
refers me, in correction of my own views, to Professor Flinders Petrie " ; p. 138 : " Pro- 
fessor Petrie, whom our latest Biblical archaeologist brings up against me " ; p. 139 : 
" Dr Astley has accused me (not discourteously) of rashness on the ground of historical 
statements by Professor Petrie." 



442 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that a " new " writer should venture an opinion of his own I will briefly 
give my reasons for that opinion, and also show why it is that " the man 
in the street" hesitates to accept the North Arabian theory as it is at 
present advanced. 

Before doing so, however, I should like to assure Dr Cheyne that 
my attitude towards him is one of the deepest respect. It was he who 
first directed my steps in the way of Old Testament criticism more than 
twenty years ago ; and although I have not been able to follow him in all 
his later developments, I shall always account him my master and teacher, 
and feel proud if he will allow me to number myself among his disciples. 

In my book I referred to Professor Petrie's " proof of the real dominion 
of Egypt over the Sinaitic peninsula, and the consequent disappearance of 
any necessity for an independent ' land of Muzri,' " and to his " sarcastic 
references to the 'dominance of Jerahmeel in a large part of modern 
critical literature ' " ; 1 and I did so because it appeared to me calculated to 
induce Dr Cheyne to call a halt in his unreserved acceptance and promul- 
gation of this novel view. I was not thereby pledging myself to follow 
Professor Petrie in every particular ! 

But Dr Cheyne says that Professor Petrie is "eager and impetuous 
alike as an explorer and a writer, 1 '' and will have none of his arguments. 

As regards the " North Arabian theory " itself, as Dr Cheyne prefers to 
call it, there is no doubt much to be said for the view that North Arabian 
tribes, whether known as Asshur (or Shur), or Ashhur, or Muzri, or 
Mizrim, or Jerahmeel, had more influence upon Canaan and upon Israel 
than has hitherto been supposed ; and the Babylonian inscriptions to 
which Dr Cheyne refers make it possible, if not probable, that the name 
Muzri or Mizrim was applied to North Arabia, and perhaps also to Syria, 
as well as to the better known Mizraim, the land of Egypt. But, that the 
Israelitish clans never were in Egypt, that there was no Egyptian bondage 
and no deliverance, that all the ideas of more than thirty centuries are 
absolutely without foundation, and that all references to Muzri or Mizrim 
in the Old Testament are wrongly pointed in the Massoretic text so as to 
read Mizraim, i.e. Egypt, and must be limited to North Arabia (or Syria), 
as Winckler first advanced, and as Dr Cheyne strives hard to prove, is too 
difficult of belief without more cogent proofs than any yet adduced. 

It is as though all references to " Scotland " in British history must be 
referred to " Ireland,' 1 because that country was first known as " Scotia " ! 

A great deal of stress is laid by the authors of the theory upon a sup- 
posed corruption of tradition and of manuscripts, whereby the name 
" Jerahmeel " can be obtained from the most unlikely sources, and Dr Cheyne 
ridicules (not unkindly) Professor Smith of Meadville for pointing out the 
dangers of this method. 

But, indeed, when we are told that " Ham " is " an abridgment of the 
form 'Jarham, 1 and therefore equivalent to the racial as well as tribal 
name ' JerahmeeP " (p. 140), or that " Arel[i] is only a popular corruption 
1 Prehistoric Archceology and the Old Testament, p. 183. 



DISCUSSIONS 



448 



>f Jerahmeelfi] " (p. 144), or that "the second part of the name Beth- 
lehem is a popular variation of some shortened form of Jerahmeel " (p. 145), 
or that "Tel-Melah" and "Tel-Harsha" are equivalent to " Tubal- 
Jerahmeel" and " Tubal-Ashhur " (p. 148), we can sympathise with 
Professor Smith in his wonderment at the names "Jabal, Jubal, 
Mahalaleel, Lamech," etc., being all forms of a lost " Jerahmeel " ! 

The whole process savours too much of the teaching of the Oxford 
>fessor of former days who declared to his class : " In etymology, 
mtlemen, you must pay no regard to the consonants, and still less to the 
>wels"! There is an appearance of juggling and verbal legerdemain 
it it, which must always fail to commend itself to the plain man. 

H. J. DUKINFIELD ASTLET. 
EAST RUDHAM, NORFOLK. 



BRITISH EXPONENTS OF PRAGMATISM. 

(Hibbert Journal, April 1908, p. 6'32, and July 1908, p. 90S.) 

paper on " British Exponents of Pragmatism " was written after I had 
mt much time in studying Dr Schiller's works. After the first draft 
finished I devoted myself further, I do not like to say for how many 
;ks, to poring over his Humanism and his Studies, examining all the 
contexts " I could lay my hands on, and trying to make sure that I was 
)t doing Dr Schiller an injustice. I did this because I really wished to 
fair to him, and I must confess because my study of his writings had 
;iven me great misgivings as to his methods of controversy. Imagine my 
sensations, then, when I had read the first two paragraphs of Dr Schiller's 
reply in the July number of this journal, where he charges me with 
having compared u isolated doctrines, sentences, and even clauses " taken 
from his works with " similarly selected excerpts " from other writers, and 
with having by this " essentially garbling " procedure obtained " grotesque 
results." But, taking heart of grace, I pulled myself together as best I 
could, and managed to read on. Suddenly there came a revulsion of 
sling that constituted one of the " releasing " moments of a life 
the records of which Dr Schiller shows a gratifying interest. I found 
myself not only willing but anxious that " the value of Professor 
['Gilvary's labours '' " be gauged by the following specimens of his 

lure." 

(1 ) " His accuracy and competence are displayed in a ' definition ' of 
truth he thrice attributes to me and argues about it for a page or so 
(p. 641). He makes me say that truth is 'a logical value.' This differs 
from the authentic form only by the insertion of the indefinite article : 
mt the extra word not only ruins the definition and the argument leading 
to it," etc. Dr Schiller's quotation-marks about the word " definition " 



444 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

made me look for this word in the passage referred to, and I found that 
word only twice in the passage. The first time it occurs here is on p. 640, 
where I speak of a " definition of truth," but I find that this definition 
says nothing about truth as " a logical value." The second " definition " 
occurs in a footnote on p. 641, and as it occurs in connection with the 
words " a logical value " in the text of my article, I assume that this is the 
" definition " to which Dr Schiller refers. Let me quote what I said. The 
text reads : " If truth is a logical value now " ; and the footnote to this 
reads : " The insistence on this fact forms the basis of the first definition of 
pragmatism given by Dr Schiller in his latest book." It will be observed 
that no mention is made here of " a ' definition ' of truth." I spoke of a 
definition of pragmatism ; and when I said "definition of pragmatism" I 
meant just what I said, and not " definition of truth." How Dr Schiller 
should misunderstand this passage and think that when I said " definition of 
pragmatism " I was attributing to him " a ' definition ' of truth," I cannot 
imagine, unless it was because he believed that " pragmatism " is " truth." 
Now, while I did not pretend to quote any " definition " of truth given 
by Dr Schiller, I did attribute to him a view as to what truth is, and this 
view is what I called " the basis of the first definition of pragmatism." 
The reader might possibly infer from what Dr Schiller says in this connec- 
tion that a "definition" of truth is given in the passage in which this 
first definition of pragmatism occurs. To obviate this possible mistake, I 
will quote the definition of pragmatism to which I referred : " We arrive, 
therefore, at our first definition of pragmatism as the doctrine that (1) 
truths are logical values, and as the method which systematically tests 
claims to truth in accordance with this principle" (Studies, p. 7). 
Nothing is said here about "truth," but something is said about 
"truths," which I take to be the plural of "a truth" and not of 
" truth." The statement made about " truths," however, involves a view 
as to the nature of " truth," and this view, thus involved, is what I called 
" the basis of the first definition of pragmatism." I formulated this basic 
view by saying that " truth is a logical value." Dr Schiller thinks that I 
have thereby reduced his " definition " of truth to ruins. The " definition " 
of truth thus wrecked by me seems to be the one given one hundred and 
fifty pages farther on in his book ; and if Dr Schiller had told the reader 
this, the reader might have seen that I was not trying to quote that 
definition, to which I did not even refer. The " definition " is as follows : 
" Truth we may define as logical value, and a claim to truth as a claim to 
possess such value" (p. 157). How does this definition differ from my 
formulation ? It is true that mine has " the indefinite article " and his has 
not. This, however, is a merely verbal matter if the two formulations 
express substantially the same thought. Do they ? To answer this ques- 
tion I must call attention to some ambiguities in the terms of the formu- 
lations ambiguities which I believe do not mislead anyone who reads the 
two formulations in the contexts in which they occur, but which may 
become dangerous when an attempt is made to compare them apart from 



DISCUSSIONS 445 

their context. We have already been told by Dr Schiller that " truth " 
is ambiguous (his paper on " The Ambiguity of Truth "). I wish to call 
attention, in two or three sentences, to a similar ambiguity in the word 
" value." Value may be the meaning of any predicate we use in a valua- 
tion : thus, when we say, " Literary honesty is honourable and garbling is 
base," honour and turpitude are the " values'" dealt with in the judgment. 
But, again, value may be used in a more restricted sense, so as to exclude 
what we disapprove and include only what we approve, as when we say, 
" Only honesty has any moral value in literature." Let us call the former 
meaning of value the inclusive meaning and the latter the exclusive 
meaning. Now when we say that truth is the only logical value, we are 
obviously using the term " value " in an prelusive sense. When we say 
that truth and falsity are logical values, we are obviously using the 
term "value" in an inclusive sense; and when the term is used in this 
sense it would be absurd to say that truth is logical value, because it is 
only one of two antithetical values. In this sense of " value " truth 
is a logical value and not logical value. Now Dr Schiller himself uses 
" value " in this inclusive sense when speaking of logical " values." 
In the immediate context of the first definition of pragmatism given 
by Dr Schiller, he says : " Thus the predicates ' true ' and * false ' are 
nothing in the end but indications of logical value, and as values akin 
to and comparable with the values predicated in ethical and sesthetical 
judgments," etc. (p. 6; italics are "authentic"). On p. 36, again, Dr 
Schiller writes : The doctrine of Protagoras " differs from that of modern 
Humanism, apparently, only in the terminological point that ' true ' 
and ' false ' are not regarded as values essentially cognate with ' good ' 
and ' bad '...." In both passages it is evident that the plural " values " 
is the plural of value in the mclusive sense. Not only so. In the latter 
passage Dr Schiller recognises that the same thought can be expressed by 
using the term in an prelusive sense, for he goes on to say : " or, in other 
words, that they are used primarily of the individual claims to cognitive 
value rather than of their subsequent recognition." The three words I 
have italicised leave no doubt on this point. Now if Dr Schiller himself, 
when dealing with logical valuation, uses the term " value " in both senses, 
why should I be held down, when stating his views but not quoting his 
words, to the use of the term in only one sense ? To compare two 
formulations of the same thought which contain the same word used with 
different meanings, and then to condemn one formulation because it is not 
a verbatim reproduction of the other, when it did not pretend to be is 
this not garbling ? And if garbling be the suppression of any expressions 
of an author which put the matter under discussion in an entirely different 
light, Dr Schiller has even garbled himself. This is, I believe, the 
consummate achievement in Dr Schiller's career of delicious drollery. 

(2) " His ingenuity in selecting passages so as to obscure the meaning 
they plainly bear in situ is illustrated by another ' definition ' foisted upon 
me on p. 644. Who would suspect from Professor M'Gilvary that the 



446 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

connection between the ' making ' of truth and of reality, the completeness 
of which his (incomplete) quotation would seem to attest, is in the very 
same sentence declared to be incomplete, and that in the immediate context 
the sense of the assertion is restricted and specified under three distinct 
heads ? " I grant that no reader could have suspected that in this case 
Dr Schiller wrote a longer sentence than it appears from my quotation 
that he wrote. But if the reader conjectured from my quotation 
that I was giving the whole of Dr Schiller's views on the making 
of truth and of reality, I am sorry for the reader, but I cannot share 
with him the responsibility for believing that Dr Schiller ever held 
any views on any subject that could be completely expressed in one 
sentence. No one who quotes can reasonably be held accountable for 
inferences from his non-committal reticences, else every time one quotes 
from Dr Schiller one would have to quote at least three volumes entire. 
My reticence here was non-committal as far as the completeness of the 
making of truth and of reality were concerned. I did not touch upon that 
feature of Dr Schiller's views in that passage ; and I do not feel myself 
called upon to quote more than I am going to make use of, unless what I 
make use of is a clause or a sentence or even a larger part of some discourse 
which, taken out of its context, suggests a different interpretation from 
that which it naturally bears in that total discourse. But even if 
Dr Schiller insists on holding me down to an absurdly rigorous standard of 
quotation which no one ever lives down to except the piratical publisher, 
even then, in this particular omission which he berates me for, I can plead to 
having observed the whole letter of his new law. Four pages farther on in 
my article, viz. on p. 648, I began a two-page discussion of the pragmatist 
view of freedom with a quotation from Dr Schiller in which he appears as 
utterly repudiating the "metaphysical prejudice" "that Reality is com- 
plete and rigid and unimprovable."" Any reader, therefore, who might 
unwarrantably have imagined from my former incomplete quotation that 
Dr Schiller's reality is bought ready-made at some bargain counter, should 
have had his very licentious imagination checked and brought back within 
limits when he reached this passage of my paper. Now who has garbled? 
I, who made an incomplete quotation and who subsequently supplied the 
missing item ? or Dr Schiller, who calls attention to the first omission 
and scores my perverse ingenuity as responsible for the omission, all the 
while keeping absolute silence about the subsequent quotation that makes 
good the previous omission ? 

(3) I achieve the astonishing by " accusing " Dr Schiller " of secretly 
cherishing an fc Absolute.' " I made no such accusation. I am far from 
believing that an author should be accused of holding views that he does 
not substantially acknowledge, even though they may be logically involved 
in what he does say. In this case I expressly said that I believed that 
Dr Schiller would do some disowning if he suspected the logical conclusion 
of his views. All I did was to quote some views of his which to my mind 
did logically involve the conclusion that all of us would ultimately be 



DISCUSSIONS 447 

rolled up into one undifferentiated solipsistia Absolute. Dr Schiller neither 
shows that my quotations are inexact or improperly used, nor does he 
discuss my argument, but he switches off into the entirely irrelevant asser- 
tion that his view of heaven is "just the fc naive' Christian conception ," 
and then expresses his wonder that with my past I should not appreciate 
his hope of the future. I had neither asserted nor denied that his view 
was " naive " or Christian, and my past has nothing to do with the logic 
of Dr Schiller's views, which was the only point I discussed in my paper in 
this connection. If this most glaring ignoratio elenchi on his part convicts 
me of garbling, it must be because the humanist logic has an unpublished 
chapter on fallacies. But with a view to showing that I am not alone in 
my partial identification of the Absolute with the logical implications of 
Dr Schiller's idea of heaven, when taken with his view as to the condition 
for retaining self - consciousness, I will quote Professor James, who, 
standing so near to Dr Schiller in matters pragmatistic and humanistic, as 
Dr Schiller himself testifies, should surely be able to understand him if any 
one can. On a certain hypothesis, "total oneness would appear at the 
end of things rather than at their origin. In other words the notion of 
the ' Absolute ' would have to be replaced by that of the ' Ultimate.' The 
two notions would have the same content the maximally unified content of 
fact, namely but their time-relations would be positively reversed" (Prag- 
matism^ p. 159 ; italics mine). Professor James adds a footnote which 
leaves no doubt that he had in mind Dr Schiller's " Ultimate " when he 
identified the content of the " Ultimate " with that of the " Absolute." 
Even Professor James, of course, may have misunderstood Dr Schiller, but 
if he has done so, the probability is that Dr Schiller has not so clear views 
in the matter as he may think. I still venture to hope that when he does 
get clear in the matter he will see that Professor James and I are right in 
our interpretation of the logical implications of his ultimate Ideal. I do 
not ask, however, that he own up. 

It is obviously impossible to prove here that I have not misrepresented 
Messrs Bradley, Bosanquet, Hobhouse, et al. in my citations from them. 
As Dr Schiller has not given any substantiation of his sweeping charges 
against me with regard to these gentlemen, I shall ask the indulgence that 
his accusations be considered a res non adjudicata till such time as, with 
the specifications before me, I have had my right to a day in court. 

EVANDER BRADLEY M'GILVARY. 
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. 



REVIEWS 



Orthodoxy. By G. K. Chesterton. London : John Lane. Pp. 297. l 

" I AM the fool of this story," says Mr Chesterton, knowing perfectly well 
that he is nothing of the kind. He is the clever man of the story, though, 
indeed, there is no story at all, and he is the only person in it. If there 
is any story, it is just the story of Mr Chesterton's cleverness ; and it is 
interesting just because Mr Chesterton really is clever, and knows it and 
delights in it. Really clever people, after all, are much less common than 
we suppose ; and still more rare are those whose cleverness has no touch 
of the sombre and sardonic. A man who is clever, as the grass is green 
and the wind clean and the sea full of motion, deserves just as honest a 
welcome in literature as these things receive in nature. And Mr Chesterton 
is this kind of man. There are people, of course, who are habitually 
offended at mere cleverness ; but a man must be a fairly complete prig if 
he is going to take offence at Mr Chesterton. 

However, if Mr Chesterton is ever going to offend anyone he will have 
done it in Orthodoxy. In Orthodoxy he has undertaken to defend 
the system of Christian beliefs formulated in the Apostles 1 Creed to be 
orthodox is, for him, to believe that creed (p. 18). He has thus got a 
theme which may, without cant, be called deep and serious. And many 
persons will feel that it is a theme in the treatment of which mere 
cleverness is out of place. " A man," says Addison, " who cannot write with 
wit on a proper subject is dull and stupid ; but he who shows it in an 
improper place is impertinent and absurd." It cannot, I think, be denied 
that much of Orthodoxy is both impertinent and absurd; and I fancy 
that its occasional impertinence and absurdity will give real offence to 
persons who are orthodox. On the other hand, a book may have much of 
this kind of thing in it and yet be a strong and sincere piece of work. 
He is a poor critic of literature as well as of human nature who marvels to 
see Religion and Flippancy meet and kiss one another. For myself, I am 
not offended in Orthodoxy ; and even if I were orthodox, I still believe 
that I should not be hurt by it. For I believe the main stuff of it to be 
sincere ; and the book, as a whole, to be something more than mere clever- 
ness. Its sincerity in one sense I should, of course, not dream of 
questioning. If any man says that he believes in the Apostles' Creed, 

1 An article on " The Message of Mr G. K. Chesterton " will appear in the next 
issue. ED. 

448 




L; 1 XL- o i XL it i u i\ o 

there is an end of this matter. He is the only person that can know, and 
I accept his statement. When I call Mr Chesterton's book " sincere," I 
can something different. I mean that, so far as I can judge, his beliefs 
really a part of him ; that he seems to me to give out in his writing a 
ur and joy which has come to him from them. Being before all else 
a clever man, he gives out this vigour and joy in a clever way in a way 
that will not appeal to stupid people. He believes in the Apostles 1 Creed ; 
and where a less clever man might be found on his knees thanking God 
for it, Mr Chesterton is to be seen running down Fleet Street shouting 
like a schoolboy, and rocking with laughter at people who don't. This 
may be outrageous, but it is, I think, sincere behaviour. To some 
extent, of course, it is mere " showing off," but there must always be a 
certain amount of " brag " in all high spirits. 

Mr Chesterton, then, strikes us in this book as being a more than 
ordinarily genuine person. On the other hand, I do not find in Ortho- 
doxy much evidence of intellectual power, or any evidence of a real 
know-ledge in its author of the subjects upon which he speaks. Mr 
Chesterton is honestly, I believe, seeking the truth. But his intellectual 
equipment is such that he is never able to do more than hunt out the 
plausible. He would laugh convulsively if he were told that in philosophy, 
for example, he ought to go to school for four years, and, full as he is of 
clever ideas, familiarise himself with the ideas of other people. Yet, after 
all, when he propounds Hume's theory of causation as though it were his 
own, and as though it never had been, and could not be, criticised, he is, 
speaking frankly, wasting his time. Some men, of course, have so quick 
and deep a sympathy with life that they can almost do without book- 
learning altogether. But Mr Chesterton is not one of these. In fact, his 
gravest defect is the want of a really deep sympathy. I am sorry to say 
this, but I felt it throughout the book. A man has only a very superficial 
sympathy with human nature who can preach so cheap and easy a doctrine 
of Free Will as that which Mr Chesterton develops in his first chapter. 
It is not helpful, it is not kind, it is not religious, it is merely inhuman 
to tell men, who could in no way have been different from what they are, 
whose lives have been a heroic and ineffectual struggle against their own sins, 
that they could help all this that they are " free." And, indeed, how many 
men have been ruined just by their faith in their own freedom, or by the firm 
conviction that they can " pull up " at any moment ? Mr Chesterton treats 
suicide, again, in the same careless way. He does not know that several 
of the greatest voices of the century Goethe, de Senancour have been 
raised in defence of the suicide. A man who has spoilt not only his own 
life but that of others, whose existence is a standing disgrace to himself 
and his family, who has no hope of honest employment, and so none of 
social or civic usefulness can we rightly impute to such a man either 
selfishness or cowardice if he casts back into the rubbish-heap of nature 
that which was in wrath and malignancy there conceived ? Mr Chesterton 
talks a great deal of cant about "loyalty to the universe." But, as a 
VOL. VII. No. 2. 29 



450 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

working principle, I prefer loyalty to oneself and one's friends. There is 
that, surely, often in suicide. And, as a matter of experience, is it not 
probable that of the persons who want to kill themselves and do not, 
ninety-nine per cent, refrain from cowardice against one to whom " loyalty 
to the universe " appeals ? 

But I must not forget that Mr Chesterton did not write this book for 
me, but, as he says, for Mr G. S. Street and the persons who read Mr G. S. 
Street. Hence, no doubt, some of the faults of which I complain. It is 
not much good with a democratic audience to be always seeing more than 
one side of a question ; nor, perhaps, is it helpful to have had a proper philo- 
sophic training. At the same time, I cannot help asking whether it is worth 
the while of a man of gifts so brilliant and telling as Mr Chesterton's to write 
a whole book just in order to pull Mr G. S. Street's leg ? As a matter of fact, 
many quite educated people read Mr Chesterton, and like him and respect 
him, and their reasons for doing so are good ones. They find him refresh- 
ing and tonic. He is clever and epigrammatic without any suggestion 
of decadence. Despite his deficiency in knowledge, he has abundance of 
ideas, and a vein of such whimsical speculation as keeps the mind always 
on the alert. He is for ever making the reader stop and ask himself, 
" Is this mere paradox, or is it something more than commonly true ? " 
"Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have 
health : when you destroy mystery you create morbidity " (p. 46). " At 
any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and 
blasphemous statement that he may be wrong" (p. 51). There are two 
good examples of Mr Chesterton's arresting faculty. No one says these 
arresting things (amid much that is tiresome) more often. Every now 
and again, I fancy, Mr Chesterton says something that is even profound, 
though I have noted nothing of this kind in Orthodoxy ; indeed, I rather 
fancy that Orthodoxy is one of Mr Chesterton's failures. Mr Chesterton 
has attempted in Orthodoxy exactly that for which he was not born 
a piece of consistent thinking. The sort of thing for which he was born may 
every now and again be divined even in Orthodoxy. " Mr Blatchford is not 
only an early Christian, he is the only early Christian who ought really to 
have been eaten by lions " (p. 51). " Mr Shaw is (I suspect) the only man 
on earth who has never written any poetry." It is for this sort of small- 
profits-and-quick-returns criticism that Mr Chesterton has a real genius. 
He is, before all, also a critic of the men and things of the moment. And 
certain qualities his readiness, his wholesomeness, his complete good- 
nature fit him for real eminence in such a department. He has it in him 
to be a real force for good in the literature of his generation. If, instead of 
talking inferior philosophy, he would devote his gifts of clear writing and 
barbless raillery to exposing the futility and pretension of Bernard Shaw, 
he would put the age in his debt. 

But Orthodoxy " will never do." Interesting, of course, it is, and I believe 
it to be sincere. Yet, as a whole, it is not only not convincing, but actually 
alienating. It is an " invitation " to religion, genuinely meant ; but what 



CHESTERTON'S ORTHODOXY 451 

we are really invited to is what children call a romp. One day I mean to 
give an immense children's party, consisting of all the clergymen who have 
ever been kind to me, and I shall then ask Mr Chesterton to come in and 
amuse us. But the history of such a children's party would make poor 
literature. And Mr Chesterton's book is really a history of that kind 
of thing. 

On p. 76 Mr Chesterton writes : " Joan of Arc .... endured poverty 
as well as admiring it, whereas Tolstoy is only a typical aristocrat trying 
to find out its secret." I hope that in a second edition he will delete 

;jntence which dishonours one of the few heroic living men. 
H. W. GARROD. 
OXFORD. 
n and The Universe : A Study of the Influence of the Advance in 
Scientific Knowledge upon our Understanding of Christianity. By 
Oliver Lodge. Methuen & Co., 36 Essex Street, W.C. 
N and the Universe is a large title. Greater precision is given to it 
^ the sub-title, " A Study of the Influence of the Advance in Scientific 
Knowledge upon our Understanding of Christianity." Under the term 
"scientific knowledge" Sir Oliver Lodge includes, not merely physical 
science, but also biblical criticism, which is, or ought to be, of the same 
spirit with it. But naturally the stress of the volume lies upon the relation 
to Christian doctrine of physical science, wherein the author is himself an 
acknowledged master. It is interesting to see such a man step forward to 
mediate between Science and Religion. How strangely different is his 
attitude from that of Huxley or Tyndall ! Is it that science has changed 
since their days ? Not in the least. The difference is due to the appear- 
ance in the world of a new thing, a thing which was scouted and reprobated 
by the votaries of Science and Religion alike; and this new thing is 
Modern Spiritualism. This thing so despised and hated, in some of its 
aspects so hateful and despicable, has nevertheless revolutionised the whole 
situation. It is because he has consorted with this witch that Sir Oliver 
Lodge is able to interpose as mediator between Science and Religion. It 
was Modern Spiritualism which started Psychical Research, and Psychical 
,rch, though it has not yet vindicated the main pretension of Modern 
iritualism, has nevertheless established results sufficient to render it 
diculous for Physical Science to suppose any longer that it knows all 
that there is to know. But while this new force has given pause to 
men of science in their attacks upon religion, it has at the same time 
brought very doubtful aid to Christianity. For by "naturalising the 
supernatural" it has shorn Christianity of the evidence to which it 
used to appeal in support of its exclusive claim to truth. But let us 
postpone comment until the reader has before him the terms of the 
compromise which Sir Oliver Lodge proposes between Science and Chris- 
tianity. For it is plainly Christianity which he has in view when he 




452 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

speaks of " religious doctrine." " Ortliodox science " is a term which can 
pass muster as having a recognisable meaning, but " religious doctrine " in 
the abstract has no meaning at all ; its contents are internecine. We must 
therefore accept an alternative phrase which we are offered, namely, " the 
general consensus of Christian theologians."" Until recently such a phrase 
did convey a definite meaning. If modern theologians have whittled that 
meaning away, we must fall back upon their more stalwart predecessors. 
Now, taking the terms Science and Religion in the sense above indicated, let 
it be granted, to begin with, that there is still a real need to reconcile them. 
Science presents us with a world which is under the reign of law, with 
no intervention from beings other than ourselves. Religion, on the other 
hand, requires us u constantly and consciously to be in touch even 
affectionately in touch with a power, a mind, a being or beings, entirely 
out of our sphere, entirely beyond our scientific ken." Science postulates 
that " the special volition of the Eternal cannot, or at any rate does not, 
accomplish anything whatever in the physical world." Religion, on the 
other hand, officially at least, still sanctions prayer for rain. " The two 
subjects, moreover, adopt very different modes of expression. The death of 
an archbishop can be stated scientifically in terms not very different from 
those appropriate to the stoppage of a clock or the extinction of a fire ; 
but the religious formula for such an event is that it has pleased God, in 
His infinite wisdom, to take to Himself the soul of our dear brother," etc. 
(p. 10). Further on, the question at issue is focussed by Sir Oliver Lodge 
in this way (p. 62) : 

1. Are we to believe in irrefragable law ? 

2. Are we to believe in spiritual guidance ? 

We all of us, he says, hold one or other of these two beliefs, the 
alternative being chaos and a multiverse, instead of a universe. His 
thesis is that the two beliefs are compatible. But to stop here would 
be to award everything to Science, leaving Religion to console itself 
with an act of faith in finding a Divine Will behind the uniformity 
of phenomena. Where then does the compromise come in? It consists 
in recognising that the universe is far wider and deeper than the man 
of science deems it to be ; that such things as " Premonition, Inspira- 
tion, Clairvoyance, Telepathy," though hard to understand, are within 
the range of fact ; that, though man is the highest being that we 
know, it does not follow that there is nothing intermediate between 
him and God. Now, if telepathy is possible between ourselves, may 
it not be possible also between us and beings of a higher order? In 
prayer there may lie an efficacy greater than that which even religious 
people now are willing to allow. " Drugs and no prayer may be almost as 
foolish as prayer and no drugs." Answer to prayer, it will be observed, 
would on this supposition be due, not to the Deity directly, but to His 
agents. It is possible that some of these beings may stand to us in the 
relation of man to dog, or in that of a far-seeing statesman to a horde of 
slaves. 



V^ll 





i 



MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 453 

The idea of Creation has always distinguished Christian theology from 

;an philosophy. Christianity declares that God made the world out of 
nothing ; Sir Oliver Lodge reverts to the Greek maxim, " Nothing can 
come out of nothing" (p. 170). The doctrine of the Fall of Man is 
essential to the Christian scheme of Redemption ; Sir Oliver Lodge denies 
that there ever was a Fall. The story of the Virgin Birth he unceremoni- 
ously sets aside as a legend ; and he does the same with that of the Empty 
Tomb. The doctrine of Eternal Punishment, which is scriptural and 
Christian, he denounces as a blasphemous fable. The doctrines of the 
'icarious Suffering of Christ and the Atonement by his Blood are explained 
be mere vestiges of savagery. The Resurrection of the Body is denied 
altogether. Lastly, Christ is declared to have been " normal man " (p. 312). 
Now if we clear Christianity of such trifling accretions as the Creation, 
the Fall, the Virgin Birth, the Atonement, and the physical Resurrection, 
it is difficult, at first sight, to say what there is left. Sir Oliver Lodge, 
however, would tell us that there is left the Incarnation and the Deity of 
Christ. For in spite of the assertion about the normal humanity of Jesus 

Nazareth, Sir Oliver Lodge holds him to have been incarnate God. 

" apparent blasphemy," he tells us, " is the soul of Christianity. It 
calls upon us to recognise and worship a crucified, an executed God" 
(p. 312). It is in the double-faced doctrine of a human God and a divine 
humanity that Sir Oliver Lodge considers the essence of Christianity to 
consist. " The Christian God," he tells us, " is revealed as the incarnate 
spirit of humanity ; or rather the incarnate spirit of humanity is recognised 
as a real intrinsic part of God" (p. 319). 

There appears to be a sort of tacit agreement among what are known 
as " advanced theologians " that people are to believe what they like, pro- 
vided only that they call it Christianity. It is assumed that Christianity 
must be true, and must therefore be in harmony with all other known truth. 
It is claimed as the great merit of this religion that it adapts itself to all 
times and places. Hence we hear so much at present, especially in the 
Hibbert Journal, of the need for a re-interpretation of Christian doctrine. 
The result is that the Christian religion, which was once so boldly dog- 
matic, has become a kind of Proteus, which, on your grasping it, evades 
you in a stream of pious phraseology. Sir Oliver Lodge appears unduly 
anxious to conciliate theologians. He has a good word even for the 
Athanasian Creed. " Whosoever will enter into the joy of the Lord must 
endeavour to understand rightly the cosmic scheme " is the reading which 
he puts upon that document. Again, in the doctrine of vicarious suffering 
he finds this germ of truth, " that the responsible task of evolution from 
animal to higher man, the struggle humanam condere gentem, could not be 
undertaken and carried through even by Deity without grievous suffering 
and agonising patience" (p. 231). A reference which is appended to 
Rom. viii. 22 seems to claim the sanction of St. Paul for this view. But 
whatever the Apostle may have meant by his mysterious words, " For we 
know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together until now," 



454 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

he would assuredly have repudiated the notion that under " creation " he 
included " the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of 
lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable." 
The doctrine of a suffering and struggling God, Himself subject to evolu- 
tion, and consequently liable to defect, cannot, I think, be truly described 
as " the revelation of Christ"" (p. 318). Christ himself is spoken of by one 
of his followers as " the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." Much 
more would such language have been used of the Father. 

When Plato promulgated his doctrine of Ideas, it was as a protest 
against the flux of Heracleitus. Individuals were transitory, but types 
were eternal. Only the other day it was discovered that species could pass 
into species ; then the flood of Heracleitus swept away the Ideas ; Nature 
was found to be careless even of types. Now we are told that God himself 
is swimming in the stream like the rest of us. The idea is interesting, but 
hardly Christian. Rather it is part of the trend of thought in our time. 
The Pragmatists hold it, if anything can be attributed to them collectively. 
At all events it is definitely the doctrine of Mr Henry Sturt. But it is not 
confined to them. Mr L. T. Hobhouse, in his Morals in Evolution, has 
given beautiful expression to the same idea, where he speaks of "an evolu- 
tionary conception of a Spirit striving in the world of experience with the 
inherent conditions of its own growth, and mastering them at the cost of 
all the blood that stains the pages of history, and all the unremembered 
tears that bedew the lone desert places of the heart." Ultimately the idea 
comes from Hegel. But such a God as this, a God striving with conditions 
not of His own imposing, is plainly not the great First Cause of all things, 
which is what Christian philosophers have meant when they spoke of God. 
If we predicate a striving God as the outcome of our experience, there will 
still remain the question Whence came the conditions against which He 
has to strive ? It is the cause of the conditions that is the real God, and 
that is left in the darkness in which it is likely to remain. A reverent 
Agnosticism seems to be our fitting attitude towards this awful and 
inscrutable Power. 

ST GEORGE STOCK. 

BIRMINGHAM. 



The Problem of Theism, and Other Essays. By A. C. Pigou, M.A., 
Professor of Political Economy, Cambridge. London : Macmillan 
&Co., 1908. Pp. x + 139. 

IN the preface, Professor Pigou explains that for his general philosophical 
attitude he is chiefly indebted to the writings of the late Professor Henry 
Sidgwick. This makes one wonder, at first, what kind of a theism might be 
constructed on such a basis. Irresistibly we recall that interesting passage 
in his Memoir in which Sidgwick applied to himself Bagehofs account 
of Clough : "He had a strong realism. He saw what it is considered 
cynical to see the absurdities of many persons, the pomposities of many 



PROBLEM OF THEISM 455 

creeds, the splendid zeal with which missionaries rush on to teach what 
they do not know, the wonderful earnestness with which the most incom- 
)lete solutions of the universe are thrust upon us as complete and satis- 
>ry." Nor can one forget the touching confession which immediately 
>llows : " Feeling that the deepest truth I have to tell is by no means 
good tidings," I naturally shrink from exercising on others the personal 
influence which would make them resemble me. ... I would not if I could, 
id I could not if I would, say anything which would make philosophy 
ly philosophy popular. 11 Professor Pigou's book, however, shows that 
Jidgwick's philosophical outlook was by no means so uninspiring as it 
>peared to some. It will probably yet come to be considered one of 
jidgwick's great services to English philosophy that, almost alone in his 
icration, he withstood the strong currents of idealism which carried his 
mtemporaries off their feet. His seemingly cold, unimaginative realism 
not something to conjure with, but it was sober. And ultimately it 
r even prove more valuable to the true interests of religion than are 
air-castles of German idealism, with all its easy adaptability for the 
irposes of apologetics. 

At present not a few votaries of philosophy are wending their way 
wards realism. Professor Pigou's first essay is an interesting illustration 
>f this tendency. And to the present writer it is gratifying to meet 
>fessor Pigou on the road to critical realism. Lying behind the sensible 
ippearance of things, he maintains, there is a reality which remains the 
ime whether the mind is in contact with it or withdrawn from it though 
is not eternally and necessarily divorced from mind. This thesis is not 
>roved. The ground for its acceptance is only a postulate the postulate, 
imely, that perceptions are innocent of fraud unless they are proved to 
guilty. All perceptions, it is true, may be deceptive. This general 
sibility of error cannot be disproved. But the usual objections to the 
stulate are inconclusive, and our author dismisses them summarily. (1) 
[ill's sensationalism, in so far as it professes to rest on introspection, is 
mfronted with the expert introspection of Sidgwick, who could not 
lyse his perception of matter into feelings or ideas of feelings, tactual, 
visual, or muscular. (2) Again, the attempt to explain away substance, 
space, and time by a genetic account of the way in which perceptions of 
lings, etc., apparently other than our own states arose, is quite irrelevant 
the consideration of the validity of these perceptions. Moreover, how 
the perception of matter and space, for instance, be explained by 
ference to certain qualities and movements of sense-organs without 
suming the reality of these sense-organs, and of the space in which they 
move ? (3) The a priori objection that only feelings and ideas, and not 
real things, can be present in the mind, derives its plausibility from the 
ambiguity of the word present. A real teacup, for example, cannot be 
present in the mind if by present is meant present in space. But if all 
that is meant by its being present in the mind is that it is known, then to 
that it cannot be present in the mind is simply to beg the question. 



456 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

(4) Lastly, there is the neo-Kantian insistence that the percipient and the 
factors with which he co-operates in the production of the world of appear- 
ance constitute an inseparable unity, and that reality is to be found only 
in this unity of subject and object. This view derives its plausiblity from 
the ambiguous use of the terms subject and object, namely, as the subject 
and object of experience. In this sense subject implies object, and object 
implies subject, and there can be no object independent of mind. But to 
identify the suggested independent reality with such an object of experi- 
ence is really to beg the question in dispute. However deeply interfused 
the percipient and the factors with which he is alleged to co-operate may 
be, some part of these factors must in fact be recognised as real, independ- 
ently of the percipient. 

Having thus defended the thesis that there is an independent reality, 
the question arises: In what does this independent reality consist? 
Here we are at once met with the objection that such a question is un- 
reasonable. For all objects of knowledge (it is urged) can only be known 
in their relation to the knower ; what they are in themselves, independently 
of the knowing mind, must therefore for ever remain unknown. But this 
objection has been refuted by Sidgwick. No doubt, all objects of know- 
ledge must stand in some relation to the knower, but it may only be the 
relation of being known as they are in themselves. The question has, 
therefore, not been proved to be unanswerable, and there is no reason why 
we should not try to answer it. Now there are three possible views on the 
relation between the percipient, the independent reality, and the world 
of appearance. (1) There is the Kantian view, that the human mind 
cannot apprehend things as they are in themselves ; that the world of 
independent reality may be a cause, but not a part of the world of appear- 
ance. (2) Secondly, there is the assumption of naive consciousness, that 
we only perceive things as they are in themselves (naive realism). (3) 
Lastly, there is the view of critical realism, that we perceive some things 
as they are in themselves, and some things differently. Professor Pigou 
rejects the Kantian view, with its conception of the transcendental ideality 
of Time and Space, and he tries to show that the theses and antitheses of 
the antinomies urged against the independent reality of Time and Space 
are not equally plausible, but that in each antinomy either the thesis alone 
or the antithesis alone is true. The second view scarcely merited special 
examination, as nobody consciously maintains it human liability to 
illusion and error being generally admitted. So there only remains 
critical realism the view that some things are in themselves just what 
they appear to us to be, while others are not so. This is the view adopted 
by Professor Pigou, though it does not seems quite in keeping with the 
subsequent assertion that "things are not what they seem \ they are always 
tinged with, and sometimes bathed and submerged in, the element of 
subjectivity " (p. 49). 

Can anything further be asserted of the nature of independent reality ? 
Well, negatively, it may be added that the two generalisations made by 



JL1IVJ,' 

z 



PROBLEM OF THEISM 457 

Materialism and Spiritism respectively, namely, that the world consists of 
matter only, and that it consists of spirit only, are both of them false. 
Materialism is brushed aside without ceremony. As to Spiritism, the 
two arguments on which it is usually based are fallacious. The first 
argument is that the world is nothing apart from the relations involved 
in it, and these relations are inconceivable apart from a relating mind. 
To this it may be answered that relations (of time and space, for instance) 
may be, without being conceived ; it is only for the conception of relations, 
not for their existence, that mind is necessary. The other argument is, 
that the universe must be intelligible, and must, therefore, be intelligent, 
or have intelligence behind it. This is true only if by " intelligible " is 
meant " imaginatively realised " ; but this is not the sense in which the 
world must be intelligible. Positively, Time and Space belong to the 
independent reality ; also the spirits of living men and perhaps of animals, 
hysical science suggests that another part of the independent reality 

sists in planetary systems of corpuscles in perpetual ordered motion 
rough a rigid plenum ; psychical science hints at the presence of dis- 
carnate spirits ; and theology claims the existence of God. It is the 
business of the special sciences to evaluate these suggestions and claims, to 
the last of which that of theology the author turns his attention next. 

The Theism with which he is concerned is the belief in a Spiritual 
Being who is not necessarily omnipotent, but who wills the good, and is 
powerful enough to make the good ultimately prevail over evil. Now the 
arguments most commonly adduced in support of Theism are these: 
(1) First, there is the philosophical argument already mentioned as the 
first argument of Spiritism. This is quite inconclusive. (2) The second 
is the physico-theological argument, or the argument from Design the 
oldest and most popular of theological arguments. The apparent adapta- 
tions of means to ends in nature are regarded as evidence of the existence 
of a Being by whom Nature was designed. Some of the objections advanced 
against this argument are not substantiated. Natural Selection, for in- 
stance, does not disprove Design, for it does not produce the fittest, it 
only eliminates the unfit ; it can, therefore, explain only the survival of the 
fittest, not their arrival. All the same, Professor Pigou is not convinced 
by the argument from Design. The convergence of many phenomena to a 
result is no proof that the result was foreseen and designed. For, some 
result there had to be ; and the odds against a converging combination are 

greater than those against any other combination. Moreover, there are 

lly no data for any kind of calculation of probability. So the whole 
ment from Design breaks down. But is Professor Pigou altogether 
consistent in regarding the theory of Natural Selection as sufficient to 
account for the evolution of a cosmos out of a chaos (p. 35), though not 
for the development of species? (3) The third and most important 
argument is based on religious experience. By this Professor Pigou does 
not mean the argument based on the efficacy of beliefs. He repudiates the 
validity of this. True beliefs are not the only ones that strengthen and 




458 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

inspire men. The efficacy of a belief is therefore no proof of its validity. 
What he has in view are the numerous attestations of religious people that 
they have experiences of immediate awareness of God. That such 
experiences of direct apprehension occur cannot be seriously doubted. 
They may contain elements of illusion and error ; they certainly are 
exposed to confusions between perception and inference. But they cannot 
be altogether explained away as purely subjective. For, from the stand- 
point of critical realism, what these people perceive are religious objects, 
not religious sensations, and " the burden of proof lies with those who hold 
that any particular aspect of experience is purely subjective, not with those 
who hold the opposite." Professor Pigou, though he refutes various objec- 
tions to the value of the testimony of such experiences, realises the 
difficulties in the way of rightly estimating it, seeing that the content of 
these experiences differs so widely. Other sciences, however, know how to 
deal with widely divergent observations, and similar methods may be 
available for the evaluation of religious experiences, though these present 
peculiar difficulties. Already, he thinks, some positive results may be 
indicated on the strength of such observations. "If the intellectual 
content of Christian Theism be taken to be merely that there exists a 
powerful Spiritual Being who wills the good, I am inclined to suggest that 
the records of religious experience, inadequately sifted though they have 
been, may even now, on the whole, point with a doubtful and trembling hand 
towards the validity of this content." " Christian Theism," he adds, " is not 
proved ; it is scarcely even rendered appreciably probable. But the way is 
not blocked. It is still open for, may be, more prosperous inquiry. To have 
traversed a stage or two of a road whereon we had hoped that a city might 
lie, and not yet to have emerged from the moorland and the mist, is not to 
have proved that the city will never be reached." At least, if we are to take 
the " Believe it not, receive it not " of Arthur Clough, we must take also his 

" But leave it not, 
And wait it out, O man." 

According to the late Professor Sidgwick, humanity will not and cannot 
acquiesce in a godless world ; the man in men will not do this, whatever 
individual men may do. " It is possible," adds Professor Pigou, " that in 
this refusal the man in men may be answering to a reality more deep than 
the cool transparencies of thought." 

A. WOLF. 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. 



Light Arising. By Caroline Emelia Stephen. Headley Brothers, 1908. 

Authority and the Light Within. By Edward Grubb. Headley 
Brothers, 1908. 

ARE mystics few or many ? In one sense of the word we are accustomed 
to think that they are few. Few can follow such writings as those of 



THE LIGHT WITHIN 459 

St Teresa or Jacob Boehmen ; it may even be doubted whether long- 
established convention is not in part at least responsible for the reputation 
and popularity of the Imitation of Christ. A certain temperament under- 
lies mysticism of this kind. This temperament may be compared to the 
mental perspective which enables a man to read Hegel with understanding : 
each implies conditions which, whatever might or should be the case, are 
in fact seldom found. But, as incapacity to read Hegel by no means 
implies incapacity to grasp the Idealist standpoint in philosophy, so 
inability to reach the level of St Teresa and the Imitation is far from 
signifying either denial of, or unwillingness to recognise, what is after all 
the central position of mysticism, that the ultimate thing in religion is 
lot a Church, a dogma, a sacrament, but a fact of spiritual experience 
ihat the Kingdom of God is within. And there are many who feel that 
this sense mysticism is at once the key to and the essence of religion, 
o such persons the Quaker spirit, in its soberness, its sanity, its sincerity, 
instinctively congenial : they find themselves in its utterances and are at 
tome in its serene air. In the two works before us this spirit is presented 
)th on its positive and its negative side ; we are shown what this interior 
kingdom opened to us by the " light within " is, and how it contrasts 
dth other conceptions of the spiritual world. 

In its early days the Society of Friends bid fair to become a numerous 
ly : two hundred years ago it numbered in the United Kingdom alone 
f5,000. These men had " visions of spiritual conquest in their eyes ; they 
idoubtedly cherished the faith that God had raised them up to restore 
-imitive Christianity, and to be the rebuilders of the Church."" These 
lopes in their original shape have disappeared. The Society has decreased 
in numbers ; and, as proselytism is no part of its programme, it tends, as 
particular body, to become a tradition in certain families, and only in 
tceptional cases attracts those without. But the Quaker spirit is per- 
leating the Churches. "We shall all be Quakers some day," said a 
irewd observer of modern religious tendencies, meaning not that there 
all be any large movement into the Society this is improbable but that 
ic main contention of Quakerism is less and less questioned by good men. 
Ecclesia spiritus ; non est ecclesia numerus episcoporum." "The 
:ingdom of God is not meat and drink " neither Papacy nor Episcopacy 
lor Presbytery; not Transubstantiation, nor Apostolical Succession, nor 
ratification by Faith no but something very different : " righteousness 
md peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." 

Miss Stephen's striking chapter on rational mysticism sets forth and 
justifies this standpoint. A mystic, she tells us, is one who has, or 
Sieves himself to have, an " illumination from within." This illumina- 
;ion is not the privilege of a select few this is unthinkable ; nor does it 
ivolve a claim to infallibility were it so, it would be in patent contra- 
liction with fact. It is a universal possession of humanity ; its degrees 
experienced by different people or by the same person at different times 
try indefinitely " ; and the vision which it confers is as little infallible as 



460 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the dictates of the individual conscience : the more the duty of following 
each is recognised, the more important the " trying " the spirits becomes. 
In each case the medium is liable to perversion. It may distort the 
message from above, or fail to distinguish it from other promptings. 
Many disclaim its possession : if a man takes this position, we accept his 
statement just as we accept that of a witness who tells us that he has seen 
a ghost. In each case his self-analysis, we believe, is imperfect. What 
the denial proves is " that the consciousness of light is not necessarily 
coextensive with its existence"; in other words, that that of which we 
speak under the figure of Light may exist in a latent state. "The 
indispensable and most necessary figure of Light points, I believe, to 
something which it is hard to distinguish from the goodness and grace of 
God ; from the Divine Spirit and life and power. And, if we believe at 
all in this Divine power and grace, we can hardly help thinking of it as 
universal.' 11 Hence an appreciation of the varied content of religious experi- 
ence. " We are learning to recognise the infinite variety and complexity of 
the conditions under which people are struggling towards Truth, Good- 
ness, and Beauty. We are beginning to see that we cannot blame people, 
the very focus of whose inner sight is unlike our own, for not thinking and 
feeling as we do on the deepest and most comprehensive of all subjects." 

The bearing of this on the conflict between the old and new in 
theology is obvious. The Spirit promises us not accurate formulas but 
secure guiding. " So far from making the claim that feeling can, as such, 
deliver ontological messages which are of final validity, I believe that 
intuition cannot supply the form of verbal propositions at all. ... In 
point of fact, the mystical sense of inward illumination has been found 
in combination with the most contradictory creeds; and the confusion 
of feeling with knowledge has brought discredit on the name of mysticism. 
But the true mystic will rather stand aloof from controversial thought, 
even his own, and is content to submit to reason whatever can be reasoned 
about, fixing his own gaze, not on explanation or proof, but on the Being 
of whom in virtue of this mysterious faculty he is so vividly aware." 

The rock on which so much so-called mysticism has made ship- 
wreck is its association with what has been called " the obscene super- 
natural" abnormal states of consciousness, the lying wonders of the 
wizard and the seer. True mysticism, we are well reminded, owes nothing 
to the darkness ; " it is essentially the light of day." The warning is 
timely. " It is not needless to insist that it can only be by the exercise of 
a real critical judgment that we can be preserved from delusions in these 
dangerous regions ; that we must never, in obedience to the promptings of 
unseen and unknown powers, transgress the very slightest of the restraints 
imposed by conscience, by good faith, by fitness, or even by common sense. 
It is only when, on all these well-recognised grounds, we are sure that the 
step mysteriously indicated is fully open to us, that any question of 
obedience to the suggestion can arise." 

Mr GrubVs aim is to exhibit the Inner Light as heir by default of the 



THE LIGHT WITHIN 461 

several conceptions of authority in religion. Taken as final and absolute, 
the Church, the Bible, the recorded sayings of Christ Himself break down ; 
they cannot be, they were not meant to be, used in this way. And when 
they are so used, "the position is extremely serious, for our Lord's 
authority is constantly being quoted to uphold positions which free and 
unfettered historical inquiry makes absolutely untenable." 

The error, however, lies further back ; the false step is taken when that 
which is without is put in the place of that which is within, letter for 
spirit. The more logically we reason from this standpoint, the wider of 
the truth is the conclusion at which we arrive. Quaerebam teforis, sed tu 
eras intus : the Kingdom of God is within. 

To many, weary of the self-assertion of the sects and the empty declama- 
tion of theologians, this conception of religion, which, under the name 
of Immanentism, is gaining ground among Christians far removed by 
tradition and circumstances from Quakerism, comes as a refreshment as 
" the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." The break with the 
historical order of Christendom the visible Church, the sacraments, etc. 
with which it was associated by the early Friends belongs to the setting, 
not to the idea. These good men did not invent it : it was before they 
were in the Church, in Scripture, in the God-taught mind of man. No 
one has a right to reject religion who has not taken this standpoint into 
consideration, or to repudiate the fundamental tenets of Christianity till 
.e has looked at them in the perspective which it gives. The doctrine of 
Atonement to take what is perhaps the most crucial instance on 
hich, on the one hand, the Mass, and, on the other, Justification by Faith 
founded, appears in a new light when so viewed. To many, neither the 
tholic nor the Protestant doctrine is even thinkable. Barclay saw 
per, far deeper, into the truth than the theologians of his day. 
" It is probably safe to say that only along the line of thought here 
n the Apology] indicated that of the identification of Christ with God 
the one hand, and man on the other, which is the kernel of the theology 
Paul and John, will the Atonement hold its place in the minds of 
thinking men. The crude doctrine of substitution which rests on the idea 
of separate personalities, and represents Christ as enduring the wrath of 
God, suffering instead of us a punishment which had to be inflicted on 
someone is untrue to the real meaning of the New Testament. The 
mystics, with one consent, have gone deeper. They have felt out after a 
ought of 'conjunct 1 personality, which the psychological study of our 
wn day is rendering more and more intelligible." 

ALFRED FAWKES. 
BRIGHTON. 



*arallel Paths. By T. W. Rolleston. London : Duckworth & Co., 1908. 

[is book possesses a merit rare among philosophical works : it is easy to 
mderstand. In the first part, the author criticises two of the principal 



462 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

modern biological theories, the "Darwin-Lamarck" and the "Darwin- 
Weismann," and expounds a third, that in which he himself believes, and 
which he terms the "Directive Theory" another name, in effect, for 
" Vitalism." " I hope that this book," says Mr Rolleston in his preface, 
" besides whatever value its conclusions may have, will prove useful to some 
readers by putting them in a position to appreciate the extraordinarily in- 
teresting and fruitful discoveries of biology in recent years." This hope 
will not be disappointed. His exposition of Weismann's theory especially 
(a theory most difficult for the lay reader to follow in Weismann's own 
books) is admirably lucid. 

In dealing with the bearing of biology on ethics, Mr Rolleston's 
conclusions are open to question. The main conclusion drawn from 
biology is summed up as follows : " Stimulus and response taken together 
constitute the directive force in obedience to which the world unfolds itself 
in the evolutionary process. . . . At the basis of all theories of evolution 
lies the fact of the responsive power of living protoplasm. But what does 
it respond to ? This is the question of questions." The author's reply to 
the question is that living matter responds to " the life impulse," " the 
vital force," the " X factor in evolution." But surely an educated man who 
believes that Haeckel has solved the riddle of the universe is rarely met 
with. The question of questions for serious thinkers is not whether the X 
factor exists, but whether this X factor, relatively to mankind, is good or 
evil, known or unknown. Does it furnish a basis for ethics, or does it not ? 

In the second and principal part of the book, which deals with the 
ethical criterion and the ethical sanction, Mr Rolleston singularly fails to 
prove that it does. " The broad fact on which a system of ethics must be 
based is that the individual finds its goal in the cosmic life," he says ; and 
farther on, " Right action in itself is simply the action which best subserves 
the central purpose of nature. . . . Nature does not directly want pleasure 
at all, but is resolved, at the cost of pleasure and everything else, to have 
life. . . . The ultimate question as regards the abstract morality of any 
act or class of acts must be, Does it make for life ? " " To make for 
life," then, is the ethical criterion. But what kind of life are we to 
make for? Apparently not pleasurable life. All the information as to 
the life we must " make for " which we can gather from Mr Rolleston is 
that he is a monist and that " this . . . universal point of view which makes 
identical the interests of the whole and the interests of the individual gives 
to a natural ethics the criterion of all human action." Yet it is precisely the 
universal point of view which we can never attain. We do not know, we 
cannot even guess, what the interests of the whole may be. To know that 
would be to have solved the riddle of existence. " The Life Impulse ! " 
Who can possibly predict what its purpose may be ? 

" Ethical Wisdom," it is said, " will clearly involve such kind of 
action as will afford to each individual the fullest opportunities for vital 
development." We do not know the ultimate purpose of life, and, when 
Mr Rolleston assumes, as he does here, that the interests of humanity are 



PARALLEL PATHS 463 



identical with the interests of the universe, he adopts a hypothesis perilously 
near that of the Utilitarianism he contemptuously rules out of court. 
Utilitarianism, as the author implicitly allows, is the alternative basis 
for ethics to the revealed will of God ; and if we are to be deprived of the 
latter criterion we must not be deprived of the former also, the only other 
there is. Bentham's philosophy, however " depressing," has mitigated the 
sufferings of countless unhappy wretches on whom the law has laid its 
hands. When there is exhibited any way in which a worship of "the 
X factor in evolution " can lead to a tenth part of the good wrought 
by Bentham\s hedonism, it will be time enough to seriously consider it as 
an ethical guide. But the " Life Impulse " ethics have nothing to do with 
" good," only with life. 

A courageous mind will allow no compromise between a personal God 
who makes His will known to us and an unknown mysterious "Life 
Impulse " of whose ultimate purpose we know nothing. The first belief 
does supply us with an ethical basis God^s will as revealed to men. 
The second does not. Now, our author acknowledges that his biology 
does not admit of a personal God. Though he does not explicitly say so, 
Mr Rolleston seems to realise the fact that the " Life Impulse " can afford 
us no ethical criterion. We are ignorant of its ultimate purpose, and 
he tries to get over this difficulty in a somewhat remarkable manner. He 
argues that some of us can cast off our " personality," our " I-hood," and 
so, merging with the unknown, become subjectively conscious of its will. 
There is nothing impossible in this contention. It expresses a familiar 
belief. But when we turn to facts to see if they confirm it, across the 
pages of history march bands of fanatics, anchorites, mormons, fakirs, 
anabaptists, and innumerable other witnesses to testify that men^s 
subjective feelings mislead and betray them. 

Christ and Socrates are quoted in support of the theory. Moral 
genius has been explained on biological grounds other than inspira- 
tion, and might be regarded as the exception proving the rule that 
our subjective feelings are deceptive guides. Yet, granted that Christ 
and Socrates were inspired, should we not better express the fact by saying 
that they were inspired by God, rather than by maintaining that they 
were inspired by the " Life Impulse " ? 

It seems as though Mr Rolleston has devoted a book on philosophy to 
advocate a belief in an " impersonal Life Impulse " that communicates its 
will by some mysterious union with the unconscious self, in place of the 

belief in the God who upholds us in His everlasting arms. But the 
Afe Impulse," if it does communicate with and guide mankind, w 
personal God. Since the two beliefs are practically the same, why seek 
to replace the beautiful language of common men, so full of meaning 
wrung from their heart's blood, with the harsh jargon of philosophy. 

The ethical sanction afforded by the "Life Impulse" is as elusive as 
its ethical criterion. " Where the lower life can yield an hour of delight, 
why deny it for the sake of a higher life if in the next hour both must 



464 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

end together ? " The reply is, " I confess I see no escape from the implied 
conclusion if the premise is true." Mr Rolleston denies the premise, and 
finds the ethical sanction in immortality and monism. " The sanction is 
found in the fact that each of us is an organic part of the whole .... 
our eternal life is not something to come .... we are living it here 
and now." 

Belief in immortality is supposed to be warranted by the fact 
that " men can communicate with and be responded to by Power, a Life, 
transcending that of which the senses inform us." What does this mean 
if not a belief in God ? If we do not believe that the " Life Impulse " 
responds to our call, then it is no moral sanction ; for a sanction can only 
operate on men through love, fear, self-interest, and force, and we cannot 
love an unknown " Life Impulse," fear it, gain anything from it, nor does 
it exert on us the compelling force of a policeman. Whereas, if we believe 
that the " Life Impulse " does speak to us, we believe in God a God to 
love, and serve, and fear, and that certainly is one of the most powerful 
of moral sanctions. Mr Rolleston^s ethical criterion and sanction resolve 
themselves on analysis into a belief in God. Then why change " Our 
Father which art in Heaven " to " The X factor in Evolution " ? Mr 
Rolleston shuts his eyes to the fact that there is no via media between 
Theism and Agnosticism. 

Part III. deals with ethical theories of Art. Mr Rolleston believes 
that art, in expressing something more than life as we know it, relates us 
to the deeper life beyond the phenomena in which we are imprisoned. 
His view differs from the agnostic view, which is more inclined to the 
belief that the symbolism of art cannot improve on the symbolism of 
nature ; that the highest aim of art is not to express something more than 
life as we know it, but rather to select and retain all that is beautiful and 
fleeting in the world about us, and so develop and stimulate those 
emotions which constitute, for Agnostics, the ultimate ethical sanction. 

The underlying refrain of Mr Rolleston's book is a vindication of 
Monism. " Dualism," he says, " is now rapidly disappearing from the 
religious thought of Europe." As a matter of fact, the controversy 
between the monist and the dualist is one that can never be decided. 
It is as impossible to conceive an eternal infinite universe composed of 
warring elements, as it is to conceive of one containing no opposing forces, 
but so constituted that it leads human beings to suppose that it does. 

Yet even the reader who has no sympathy with Mr Rolleston's main 
contention cannot help being struck with the cogency of that part of his 
argument in which he suggests a spiritual line of thought too apt to be 
overlooked and forgotten in a materialistic age. 

FRANCES PETERS EN. 
WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD. 



DICTIONARY OF CHRIST 465 



A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels. Edited by James Hastings, D.D., 
with the assistance of John A. Selbie, D.D. and (in the reading of 
the proofs) of John C. Lambert, D.D. Vol. I. Aaron Knowledge, 
pp. xii-f-936, 1906. Vol. II. Labour Zion, pp. xiv + 912, 1908. 
Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark. 

Any detailed notice of the lately completed Dictionary of Christ is not 
possible in these pages, but a word of congratulation is due to Dr Hastings 
on its production. To him, with the five volumes of the Dictionary of the 
Bible to his credit, and one of the ten volumes of the Encyclopaedia of 
Religion and Ethics already successfully launched, it is possible that the 
Dictionary now under notice reckons only as a trifling parergon, but it 
contains over 1800 double-column pages, from nearly 250 contributors. 

The only important criticism we have to offer affects the original 
conception rather than the execution. The Dictionary does not seem to 
have a satisfactory fundamentum divisionis. The title makes us wonder 
what is its relation to the Dictionary of the Bible, which, naturally, included 
Christ and the Gospels. The explanation in the preface does not quite 
convince us that the design was altogether well-conceived, or that it has 
been punctiliously executed. The editor tells us that this new Dictionary 
is " in a sense complementary to the Dictionary of the Bible " ; but " a 
Dictionary of the Bible, being occupied mainly with things biographical, 
historical, geographical or antiquarian, does not give attention sufficient 
for the needs of the preacher, to whom Christ is everything. This is, first 
of all, a preachers'* dictionary. 1 " So far, good ; a preachers'* Dictionary of 
Christ, complementary to the Dictionary of the Bible, would be a service- 
able addition to their tools, and preachers would be grateful for it. 
Recognising the difficulty of the task, those preachers would not ask for 
perfection in the fulfilment of the ambitious claim made by this same 
preface, viz., to " include all that relates to Christ in the literature of the 
world." 1 But Dr Hastings or his publishers were not content to issue a 
Christian supplement to their Bible Dictionary ; they aimed at a new and 
self-contained work. This meant that where the same headings appear in 
both dictionaries, new writers had to be requisitioned. " Even when 
articles occur under the same title in both, they are written by different 
men from different standpoints." The new standpoint is presumably the 
Is of the preacher ; and we are told that the contributors have been 
?n from among those scholars who are, or have been, themselves 
;hers. But many of the contributors to the previous Bible Dictionary 
linly had this qualification ; and we suppose that the new men were 
>ught in for the repeated subjects, whether they were or were not better 
lolar-preachers, simply to make this new dictionary an independent 
rork. The result is a great amount of mere dittography. " The needs of 
le preacher " is an elastic phrase ; but a very liberal interpretation of it 
iocs not suffice to differentiate many of the articles in the new dictionary 
VOL. VII. No. 2. 30 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

from its biblical predecessor. With less excuse this time, Dr Hastings 
has again produced a dictionary that deals mainly with things < historical, 
geographical, antiquarian." 

What strikes us as a curious omission is that there is no life of Jrsu.s 
in it. Mindful of Dr Bruce's great article in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, our 
first reference here was to " Jesus." There is no such heading, but there 
are two and a half columns of German erudition under " Jesus (the name)." 
Then we looked for the heading "Jesus Christ," remembering that it was 
under that title that Dr Sanday produced his sketch of the life of Jesus. 
There is no heading " Jesus Christ." Finally we turned to " Christ," and 
found that at least this heading did occur. We quote it : " CHRIST. 
See ATONEMENT, AUTHORITY OK CHRIST, BIRTH OF CHRIST, DATES, DEATH OF 
CHRIST, MESSIAH, PERSON OF CHRIST, PREACHING OF CHRIST, ETC. ETC." 
We recalled Paul's question ^e/jLepicrrat 6 Xpiorrd? ' The only other heading 
under " Christ " is " Christ in Art," and it stands at the head of fourteen 
columns thereupon. Surely it was not unnatural to expect that in an 
independent and comprehensive Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels 
there should be a connected survey of the Life of Jesus. 

The claim to which we have already made reference, to " include all 
that relates to Christ in the literature of the world" receives scanty 
iustification in the main body of the Dictionary, but there is an appendix 
of eight articles which goes some way to vindicate it. The last is on 
Paul ; but the other seven deal with Christ in i. The Early Church ; ii. 
The Middle Ages (Dante is not even mentioned in this article); iii. 
Reformation Theology ; iv. Seventeenth Century ; v. Modern Thought ; 
vi. Jewish Literature; vii. Mahommedan Literature. These articles are 
among the most brilliant in the two volumes. 

Dr Hastings has in this Dictionary relied almost exclusively upon British 
and American contributors. A few articles are drawn from the foreign 
mission fields : England supplies some ninety articles; Scotland about seventy ; 
Ireland and Wales about twenty ; and America between forty and fifty. We 
have noted only three contributions from Continental universities : they 
are furnished by Kattenbusch of Halle, Nestle of Maulbronn, and Johannes 
Weiss of Marburg. The ecclesiastical affinities of the many contributors 
are various. We did not expect, and we have not detected, any Roman 
Catholic name ; but most of the Christian communions find representation. 

The chief deficiency of the Dictionary is one that will not seem a 
deficiency from the editor's standpoint. After all that he gives us in these 
abundant pages, we still need, not a Dictionary of Christ, but a Dictionary 
of Jesus. No doubt the great majority of the preachers of Britain and 
America will accept Dr Hastings' phrase, that to them " Christ is 
everything." To them the dogmatic and theological discussions of these 
volumes will seem the appropriate idiom of their faith. But there are, 
nevertheless, some preachers and a large public who would with all 
reverence substitute the name "God" for Christ in that formula, but 
whose interest in Jesus is nevertheless eager and affectionate. To these, a 



DICTIONARY OF CHRIST 467 

treat deal of this Dictionary is little more than a new Protestant scholasti- 
cism. They search these copious columns in vain to find any adequate appre- 
ciation of the real human Jesus : he is obscured throughout by a spectral, 
supernatural, cold, theological Christ. They will hope that in due time 
a Dictionary of Jesus will be given to them. To do Dr Hastings justice, 
let it be added that they do not expect him to provide it. 

J. H. WEATHKRALL. 

BOLTON. 






av Religiotwn.By Nathan Soderblom, D.D. Pp. 120. 
Stockholm: Aktiebolaget Ljus, 1908. 



is unpretentious little book is one of the latest contributions to "The 
Study of Religion." It constitutes an important item in a new series of 
manuals, whose general title, Popularvetenxkaplig Studieledare, may be 
translated " Guides to Popular Scientific Study. " The collection of hand- 
books to which it belongs, issued under the auspices of the University 
Extension Society of the Students of Northern Sweden, will eventually 
include several scores of volumes which, published at popular prices in paper 
covers, are certain to gain entrance into hundreds and thousands of homes. 
The writers who have been invited to contribute are men of recognised 
competence. The departments of knowledge covered by the series will 
embrace philosophy, history, philology, theology, belles lettres, art, etc. 

tFor this new library, Professor Soderblom of Upsala was at first asked 
furnish the volume devoted to Religionshixtoria. It was however 
ided, later on, to widen somewhat the scope of his treatise, in order 
that it might include all general topics proper to Religionsfilosofi. The 
task thus defined has now been executed, and it will readily be admitted 
that it has been achieved with conspicuous skill. The author has con- 
trived, though within unusually narrow limits, to give a fairly adequate 
idea of the character of the religious studies with which not a few experts 

t busying themselves to-day. 
In particular, Dr Soderblom traces very interestingly and forcibly the 
tionship which subsists between Christian Theology and Comparative 
Religion. In his preface he lays down the principle that modern scholar- 
ship refuses to recognise any dictum that would separate these departments 
of investigation, as though they belonged to two practically different 
spheres. The theologian is one who must acquaint himself with the 
tenets of all religions, and not exclusively with the teachings of Christi- 
anity. The fact that the Christian religion frequently advances its claim 
to be the absolute and final religion does not decrease, but on the contrary 
immensely increases, the necessity devolving upon that faith to examine 
honestly into the sanctions that have evoked reverence and loyalty among 
the devotees of many other faiths. A rigid confessionalism must no longer 
restrict the right and duty of thoroughgoing research. On the other 



468 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



of Chris 






o 

I 



2 

25 C fl 



hand, the scientist must not debar the Christian theologian from expound- 
ing freely, and with every enforcement of local and personal emphasis, the 
grounds upon which his convictions ultimately rest. 

In a word, Professer Soderblom holds that the study of religion reaches 
its apex in the study of Comparative Religion. It may not be amiss to 
reproduce an interesting tabular statement which the author prints on 
page 86. When translated, it runs as follows : 

History of the Religion^ 
of Israel. 

Gospel Research. [-Bible Research. 

History of Primitive 
Christianity. 

( History of Dogma; 

History of the Christian History of the re- 
Religion, containing,^ ligious ideal and 
among other items : of religious life ; 

^ Symbolics ; etc. 

Statistical Theology. 

Dogmatico-Ethics (Systematic Theology). 

General History of Religions. 

The Psychology of Religion and the Phil- 
osophy of Religion. 






Ml 

2 



M u qj QJl 12 _U 



4* o 

C S e 
<L> 4> 



1 



S o 

is3lS 

Sl 



ll|3. 

53 CJ S OS 



It will be noted that the writer apparently employs the name jamfur- 
ande reRgiffntkunskap the phrase jdrnfbrande religionsvetenskap is more 
commonly used in other parts of the book as interchangeable with 
religiGiisfilosofi, whereas it is probably wiser to reserve the designation 
" The Philosophy of Religion " for work that lies distinctly in advance of 
" Comparative Religion.'" But, without going into the question raised by 
this choice of nomenclature, the significance of Professor Soderblom "s 
attitude will certainly not be missed by those who read his book. The 
importance he attaches to the new science of Comparative Religion, now 
forcing its conclusions upon the attention of theologians in every land, is 
another indication that this latest field of inquiry will very soon come to 
its own. Even in circles where studies are pursued in accordance with the 
more popular methods of exposition, the rise and value of Comparative 
Religion are now being discussed, and with a xest hitherto unknown. 

Professor Soderblom is to be congratulated upon the production of so 
useful and suggestive a volume. Already, while still within a year of its 
initial publication, a third edition has been called for, and will shortly be 
issued in a revised and amplified form. 

Louis H. JORDAN. 
OXFORD. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

OF RECENT BOOKS AND ARTICLES. 



RELIGION 1 Nature 2 Pkilos. 3 
8 Christianity 10 Nat. Relig. 
15 Relig. and Science. 

Hastings (James), ed. Encyclopedia of 
eligiori and Ethics. Vol. i., A- Art. 
)25p T. & T. Clark, 1908. 

[The first volume of an elaborate Encyclopaedia 
vhich will embrace the whole range of Theology 
,nd Philosophy, together with the relevant por- 
ions OL Anthropology, Mythology, Folk-lore, 
iology, Psychology, Economics, and Sociology, 
he work will consist of about ten volumes.] 
King (Henry Churchill} The Seeming 
Fnreality of 'the Spiritual Life. (The 
Nathaniel William Taylor Lectures for 
L907.) 256p. Macmillan Company, 1908. 
[This book seeks to speak directly, as frankly and 
mply as possible, and yet with some adequacy, 
i the fundamental religious need of men to the 
3ed of all who cherish ideals of any kind.] 
Steinmann (tf/r.), ed. Religion und 
sisteskultur. Zeitschrift fiir religiose 
Tertiefung des moderneu Geisteslebens. 
)p. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1908. 

[Second yearly volume, containing many import- 
it articles.] 

Whately (Arnold R.) The Inner Light : 
Study of the Significance, Character, and 
rimary Content of the Religious Conscious- 
icss. With an Introductory Note by 
)fessor Caldecott. 257p. 

Sonueuschein, 1908. 
[The primary aim of this treatise is to press the 
lira of the spiritual mind to know God for itself, 
is only iu relation to persons that is, iiidi- 
iduals that the personality of God can be 
nderstood. ] 

Pigou (A. 0.) The Problem of Theism, 
id other Essays. 149p. Macmillan, 1908. 
[See p. 454.] 

Ermoni (V.) La foi et la croyance en 
.atiere religieuse. 

Annales de Phil, chret. , Aug. 1 908. 
[Defining their nature and delimiting their 
spheres.] 

Slwiv (Charles Gray} The Precinct of 

Religion in the Culture of Humanity. 292p. 

Swan, Sonnenschein, 1908. 

[Substance of the lectures delivered in the 

Graduate School of New York University in the 

course entitled " Philosophy of Religion." Both 

metaphysics and psychology are here set aside for 

the sake of a humanism which seems best adapted 

for defining the essence of human worship.] 

Thomson (J. Arthur] The Bible of 
Mature. Five lectures delivered before 
Lake Forest College on the Bross Founda- 
tion. 262p. T. & T. Clark, 1908. 
[Nature is treated as a book from which may be 
learnt much that concerns our mortal well-being, 



and in which men of science may seek, in all 
reverence, to discover the Almighty, the Ever- 
lasting.] 

Bernies (V. L.) Dieu est-il ? Etude 
critique sur la valeur de la demonstration. 
R. du Clerge frangais, Aug. 15, 1908. 

[Continuation. A criticism of the principal 
theses of materialism and pantheism, particularly 
as formulated by Le Dantec. ] 

Prat (L. ) Le probleme du mal. 

Ccenobium, July 1908. 

[Short criticism of the treatment of the question 
by a Catholic writer, Xavier Moisant, in his Dieu, 
t'exptrience en mttaphysique.] 

Caldecott (A.) The Religious Sentiment : 
An Inductive Inquiry. 

Proc. Aris. Soc., N.S., viii., 1908. 

[A study of a small group of thirty-four 
autobiographies of Wesley's early Methodist 
preachers.] 

Benson ( Margaret ) The Venture of Faith . 
336p. Macmillan, 1908. 

[" The aim of this book is to show the reason 
of faith, not necessarily to find out a new reason, 
but to make clear if possible an implicit reason. 
And those to whom it is addressed are neither 
the experts on one side, nor on the other those 
who live by instinct, but average people of edu- 
cated intelligence."] 

Ross (0. A. Johnston) and others. Re- 
ligion and the Modern Mind. (Lectures 
delivered before the Glasgow University 
Society of St Ninian.) Introduction by 
Principal Macalister. 300p. 

fiodder & Stoughton, 1908. 

[The Society of St Niuian was founded as a 
meeting-place for all students who desired to 
investigate with candour modern problems of 
religious faith and duty. This volume contains 
the public addresses with which the Society was 
favoured in 1907-8.] 

Palmer ( W. Scott) Providence and Pru- 
dence. Cont. R., Nov. 1908. 

[If it were not for death and sorrow, the work- 
ing out of liberty in our conquest over physical 
things might well bring about in many of us our 
damnation ; that is, it might well enable many of 
us to live comfortably without God, to cease to 
desire Him, to desire any spiritual good, to desire 
love ; or to love at all in self-sacrifice and self- 
sharing.] 

Stocker (R. Dimsdale) Spirit, Matter, 
and Morals. 97p. Owen, 1908. 

Chesterton (Gilbert K.) Orthodoxy. 
279p. Lane, 1908. 

[See p. 448.] 

Purton(Lt.-Col. W. H.} The Truth of 

Christianity : An Examination of the more 

Important Arguments for and against 

believing in that Religion. 61 2p. 7th ed. 

Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1908. 



469 



THE H1BBERT JOCRXAL 





RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 471 

DcUbri x 



fc (Qxfcvfl 
*L,wnL life 

f *riM(j:jr) 

J-TVSt,Oetim; 




Mfatafc*. bill Z/i*i^. ifefi 4, If**. 

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472 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



[Drawn from the Proceedings of the Berlin 
Academy, 1907, pp. 942-957. Matt. vi. 13=Luke 
xi. 4 means, " Lead us not into affliction (i.e. on 
account of our sins)." Luke xvi. 16= Matt. xi. 12,13 
means the prophetic period of preparation has 
ended with John Baptist the Kingdom of 
Heaven is now coming with a rush.] 

7A IVright (A.) A Short Introduction to 
the Study of the Acts of the Apostles. 

Interpreter, Oct. 1908. 

B Burton (E. D.) Atonement in the 
Teaching of Paul. Bibl. World, Oct. 1908. 

D Steimnetz (K.) Textkritische Unter- 
suchung zu Rom. i. 7. 

Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 3, 1908. 
[Ch. XT. and xvi. are original parts of the 
Epistle; the doxology is authentic, and its original 
place is at the end of ch. xyi. A reader of 
another community, omitting the ch. xv. and 
tvi., concluded ch. xiv. with the doxology. 
Under the same circumstances in i. 7 and 15 
the Roman references were deleted.] 

E Jenkins (0.) Origen on l^Corinthiansiv. 

J. Th. St., Oct. 1908. 

(Continues the Greek text.] 

H Coffin (C. P.) Seeds or Seed, in Gal. iii. 

16. Bibl. World, Oct. 1908. 

[Gal. iii. 166," He saith not, And to seeds 
is not a part of the text, but a marginal gloss.] 

Miclwlini (G.) Ta Erotx ta TOU Kotr/xou 
(Gal. iv. 3, 9 Coloss. ii. 8, 20). 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog., Oct. 1908. 

[Expository.] 

L Rutherfurd (John) St Paul's Epistles to 
Coloss* and Laodicea. The Epistle to the 
Colossiaus viewed in relation to the Epistle 
to the Ephesians. 207p. 

T. & T. Clark, 1908. 

[An attempt to trace the unity of thought and 
feeling, and even of verbal expression, pervading 
the Epistle to the Colossians and that to "the 
Ephesians," and also to show that the latter is 
really the Epistle to Laodicea.] 

8 Robinson (J. Amiitage) Dr Hort on the 
Apocalypse. J. Th. St., Oct. 1908. 

9 Blau (L. ) Das neue Evangelien fragment 
von Oxyrhyncus buch- und zaubergeschicht- 
lich betrachtet nebst sonstigen Bemerk- 
ungen. 

Ztsch. f. ueutest. Wiss., Heft 3, 1908. 

[A study of the format and of the allusions to 

magic, leading to the conclusion that the fragment 

is the remnant of a book which was used as an 

amulet.] 

Buonaiuti (E. ) Luce dell' Oriente ! 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog. , Sept. 1908. 
[Reviews of Deissmann's Licht vom Osten and 
Milligan's St Paul's Epp. to the Thessalonians, 
Greek Text, with Notes.] 
Nau (F.) Le probleme d'Ahikar. 

R. du Clerge frangais, Nov. 1, 1908. 
[States the story of Ahikar as given in Tobit and 
in the supplement to the Arabian Nights, and the 
solutions so far proposed.] 

Nissen (Th.) Die Petrusakten und ein 
bardensanitischer Dialog in der Aber- 
kiosvita. 

Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 3, 1908. 
Schade (L.) Hieronymus und das heb- 
niische Matthaus-original. 

Bibl. Ztschr., Heft 4, 1908. 
[Jerome in the first decade of the fifth century 
save up his previous identification of the Heb- 
Evan and the original Heb-Matt. The writer 
holds that the relationship between the two was 
not of the closest. Moreover, when J. speaks of 
Heb-Mt. he always means the Heb-Ev., and is 
not a first-rank witness for a primitive Heb-Mt.] 



Steuemagel (C.) Bemerkungeu iiber die 
neuentdeckten jiidischen Papyrusurkunden 
aus Elephantine und ihre Bedeutung fur 
das Alte Testament. 

Th. St. u. Krit, Heft 1, 1909. 

[A temple in Egypt with maccebas (the stone 
pillars of Pap. 1, line 9) must mean a pre- 
Deuteronomic settlement; cp. Dt. xii., xvi. 22. 
Pap. 1, line 13 f. show the temple was built in the 
time of the Egyptian kings and found in 525 by 
Cambyses, so that the community was settled 
before the Persian period. Is. xlix. 12, where we 
should read D'Olp p"lND, "from the laud of 
the Syenites," refers to this body. Now, Pseudo- 
Aristeas mentions that Jews were sent to help 
Psammetichus (I., W3-G10) in his Ethiopian 
campaign. Dt. xvii. 16 bears this out, referring 
to Manasseh's sending troops to P, in return for 
horses. These soldiers were settled by P at 
Elephantine. Is. xix. refers to these incidents, 
and must therefore be dated in the 7th century.] 

C CHURCH 14 "Social Problems, 20 - 

Polity, 42 " Liturgical, 50 " Sacraments, 
60 Missions. 

C Giran (E. ) Les ChristianismeB professes 
et la conscience moderne. 

Ccenobium, July 1908. 
[Announces the triumph of the modern con- 
science, not over Christianity, but over every 
present form of professed Christianity.] 

15 Voysey (Charles) A Message to the Pan- 
Anglican Congress of 1908. 7 p. 

Longmans, 1908. 

16 Gladden ( Washington) The Church and 
Modern Life. 227 p. 

James Clarke & Co., 1908. 

["These pages have been written in the firm 
belief that the Christian Church has its great 
work still before it, and that it only needs to free 
itself from its entanglements and gird itself for 
its testimony to become the light of the world. 
Something of what it needs to do to make ready for 
this great future, this little book tries to show."] 

Adains(B. W.} Is the Church a Failure * 
And shall she be ? Preface by the. Bishop 
ofCroydon. 80p. Elliot Stock, 1908. 

42 Rule (M.) The Leonian Sacramentary : 
An Analytical Study. II. 

J. Th. St., Oct. 1908. 

43 Coit (Stanton) National Idealism and 
the Book of Common Prayer ; An Essay in 
Re-interpretation and Revision. 492p. 

Williams & Norgate, 1908. 

[An attempt to show how the Book of Commoa 
Prayer could be modified so as to enable its being 
used by societies of ethical culture.] 
50 Seeching (H. C.) The Bible Doctrine of 
the Sacraments. (Six Lectures given in 
Westminster Abbey. ) 169p. 

John Murray, 1908. 

[A third series of lectures, the aim of which 
has been to interest and instruct those brethren 
of the laity who, with leisure to give their minds 
to such matters, have had no special theological 
training.] 

53 Boudinhon (A.) L'Elevation et la genu- 
flexion. R. du Clerge fra^ais, Oct. 15, 1 908. 

[Historical inquiry into the rise of the customs. 
Adapted from Father Thurston's article in Tht 
Month, Oct. 1897.] 

Stone (D.) Eucharistic Doctrine and the 
Canon of the Roman Mass. 

Church Q.R., Oct. 1908. 

[Examines the text of the Canon and the ritual 
acts, and concludes that they neither assert nor 
imply any doctrine repugnant to the standards of 
the Eastern or Anglican Churches.] 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 473 



Turner (C. H.} Irregular Marriages and 
the Earliest Discipline of the Church. 

Church Q.R., Oct. 1908. 

[The Church had strictly then no law of marriage, 
which was regarded as within the State's pro- 
vince. But legal unions which the Church con- 
sidered as not fulfilling the Christian ideal were 
met by discipline by the forfeiture, temporary 
or permanent, of the privileges of Christian 
membership.] 

DOCTRINE 10 ' God, 22 "Christ, 60" 
Eschatology, 70 " Faith, 90 " Apologetics. 

Hinzinga (A. v. G. P.) The Function 
of Authority in Life and its Relation to 
Legalism in Ethics and Religion. 

Princeton Th. R., Oct. 1908. 

[Mainly quotations.] 

Nash (H. N.) The Saving Truth as it is 
in Jesus. Bibl. World, Oct. 1908. 

Thilly (F.) Can Christianity ally itself 
with Monistic Ethics. 

Amer. J. Th., Oct. 1908. 

[Christianity does not agree with a consistent 
monistic philosophy; but Christian ethics may 
possibly be (inconsistently) grounded upon the 
patchwork philosophy which is what most mon- 
istic systems (e.g the New Theology) really are.] 

Kriiger (Gustav) Dogma and History. 
(Essex Hall Lecture.) 84p. 

Philip Green, 1908. 

de Grandmaison (L.) Le developpe- 
ment du dogme chretien. IV e partie, Le 
developpement proprement dit. 

R. prat. d'Apologet., Sept. 15, 1908. 

Lepin (M.) Les theories de M. Loisy 
expose et critique. 382p. 

Beauchesne & Cie, 1908. 

[This work bears the imprimatur of the Holy 
See, and deals very fully with the doctrines and 
theories of Loisy.] 

Sabatier (Paul) Modernism. (The 
Jowett Lectures, 1908.) 348p. 

S. Fisher Uuwin, 1908. 

[Three lectures, translated by C. A. Miles, de- 
livered in London, at the invitation of the 
" Jowett Lectures " Committee, during February 
and March 1908.] 

10 Barrow (G. A.) The Christian Experi- 
ence of the Trinity. 

Amer. J. Th., Oct. 1908. 

Delitzsch (Friedrich) Whose Sou is 
Christ? Two Lectures on Progress in 
Religion. Translated by F. L. Pogson. 
75p. Philip Green, 1908. 

[Repudiates Trinitariauism.] 

Warschauer (J.) Jesus : Seven Questions. 
Chapters in Reconstruction. 302p. 

James Clarke, 1908. 

[Purpose of these "chapters in reconstruction" 
is "to show that when modern criticism and 
modern thought have obtained a full hearing, the 
essential verities of our faitn the Divinity of our 
Lord, the Incarnation of God in Him, and the 
Atonement of God and man through Him 
remain not only unshaken, but more firmly 
established than ever."] 

Nolloth (Charles Frederick) The Person 
of Our Lord and Recent Thought. 376p. 

Macmillan, 1908. 

[Object of the work is to show that the result 
of the vast amount of research and criticism 
directed, during the last few years, upon the New 
Testament representation of Jesus Christ has 
been to confirm the views which the Christian 
Church has always held on this subject of 
religious thought.] 



26 Meyer (C.) L'expiation et la mort du 
Christ. R. chret., Sept. and Oct. 1908. 

27 Boone (E. W. ) The Belief in the Resur- 
rection among the First Christians. 

Bibl. World, Oct. 1908. 

[The significance of the Resurrection for ttieir 
thought and life, and of the doctrine of immor- 
tality for us.] 

Fenn (W. W.) The Relation between 
the Resurrection of Jesus aud the Belief in 
Immortality. Amer. J. Th., Oct. 1908. 

[There is no logical inference from the former 
to the latter.] 

Mackenzie (W. D.) The Relation be- 
tween the Resurrection of Jesus and the 
Belief in Immortality. 

Amer. J. Th., Oct. 1908. 

[If faith in the Resurrection of Jesus has dis- 
appeared, the idealistic arguments for immor- 
tality begin to lose their power.] 

E ETHICS. 6 Christian Ethics, 7-9 
Transition to General Ethics, 10 Theories, 
20 Applied Ethics, Sociology, 23 Economies , 
27 Education. 

Murray (J. Clark) A Handbook of 
Christian Ethics. 342p. 

T. & T. Clark, 1908. 

[An important work, Part i. deals with the 
supreme ideal of Christian Life ; Part ii. with the 
Christian Ideal in its Subjective Aspect ; Part in. 
with the Christian Ideal in its Objective Aspect ; 
and Part iv. with the Methodology of Christian 
Ethics.] 
6 Gounclle (E.) En face de la justice. 

R. du Christianisme social, Sept. 1908. 

[A strong vindication by a " free-believer " (i.e. 
a non-dogmatic Christian) of the social aim and 
social power of Christianity, against the attacks 
of " free-thinkers." ] 

Eagar (Alex. R.) The Absolute in 
Ethics. Hennathena, xxxiv., 1908. 

[The only possible root of perfect Morality is a 
God who is truly the One God, and yet not God 
in His pure Infinity who is Absolute, who is 
both Immanent and in special " Humauisation " 
as God in a human existence and in lasting 
manifestation through all Humanity.] 
10 Westermarck (Edward) The Origin and 
Development of the Moral Ideas, vol. ii 
865p. Macmillan, 1908. 

[A review of the two volumes of this important 
work will appear in a future issue.] 

Dewey (John) and Tufts (J. H.) Ethics. 
(American Science Series.) 631p. 

Holt& Co., 1908. 

[Part i., dealing with the Beginnings and Growth 
of Morality, endeavours to follow the moral life 
through typical epochs of its development. Part 
ii., on the Theory of the Moral Life, is devoted 
more specifically to the analysis and criticisms of 
the leading ethical conceptions. Part iii., on the 
World of Action, is concerned with some of the 
typical social and economic problems which 
characterise the present age.] 

Tufts (James H. ) Ethical Value. 

J. of Phil., Sept. 10, 1908. 

[The particular kind of value which is ethical 
is a rational and social value. It has intellectual, 
as well as affective, and instinctive elements. It 
is, in the phrase of recent discussion, " judg- 
mental." By abstraction it may be both described 
and felt.] 

Super (Charles W. ) Ethics aud Law. 

Inter. J. Eth., Oct. 1908. 

Baillie (J. B.) The Dramatic and 
Ethical Elements of Experience. 

Inter. J. Eth., Oct. 1908. 



474 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



[Deals with the problem presented by that 
aspect of man's experience where the efforts of . 
his will are thwarted by agencies which lie out- I 
side the seriousness of his own moral purposes, ) 
where his moral actions become part, and are | 
seen to be part, of a plan wider than that covered i 
by his own foresight.] 

enn (Alfred IV.} The Morals of an 
Irumoralist Friedrich Nietzsche. 

Inter. J. Eth., Oct. 1908. 

[Nietzsche habitually posed as an emancipator 
from moral restrictions, speaking of what he 
called Morafin as a deadly poison. Yet he was 
a truly ethical genius, a thinker with whom 
problems of conduct constituted from beginning . 
to end the supreme if not the sole interest of 
life. | 

Wright (W. K.) Happiness as an 
Ethical Postulate. Phil. R., Sept. 1908. 

[Endeavour of paper is to show that, provided \ 
happiness is defined with sufficient care, psycho- ; 
logical support can be found for its employment , 
as a moral postulate, and that this postulate will 
be found significant for ethics.] 

Seth (James) The Alleged Fallacies in ; 
Mill's Utilitarianism. Phil. R., Sept. 1908. j 

[Writer is convinced that much of the familiar 
riticism of Mill's argument is essentially unjust. | 
All that is necessary, in defence of Mill from the ! 
charge that he has fallen into fallacies which are : 
patent to the veriest tyro in logic, is to interpret j 
his argument in the light of its context and nf 
the purpose the author has in view.l 

Wright (Henry W.) Self- Realisation and | 
the Criterion of Goodness. 

Phil. R., Nov. 1908. i 

[Understanding the function of the self to be 
the extension of its power over a greater and 
greater field, the progressive realisation of its 
freedom, the ideal of self-realisation supplies at 
once a well-defined standard of moral judgment. 
An act is good in the degree in which it promotes 
self-organisation, and bad to the extent that it 
hinders the same process.] 

Leighton (Gerald) The Greatest Life. 
299p. Duckworth, 1908. 

[Seeks to prove that the whole human person- 
alitythe physical, mental, moral, and spiritual 
in man is the result of the operation of the 
same universal law ; and that all development of 
every kind is in accordance with one and the 
same principle. It is this law which makes a 
scientific religion a possibility, and a necessity for 
the modem mind.] 

Sharp (F. Chapman) A Study of the 
Influence of Custom on the Moral Judgment. 
(Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, 
No. 236.) 144p. Madison, Wisconsin, 1908. 

[A study in which use is made of the question, 
aire.] 

Beneti (W.) The Ethical Aspects of 
Evolution regarded as the Parallel Growth 
of Opposite Tendencies. 220p. 

Clarendon Press, 1908. 

[Purpose of essay twofold : in the first place, to 
enforce the view of evolution as the equal and 
parallel progression of opposites ; and in the 
second place, to trace the connection of this 
principle with ethics or the systematic represen- 
tation of our judgments on human conduct.] 

Gillet (P.) L'e"ducation du caractere. 
Nouvelle edition. 308p. Desctee, 1909. 
20 Fell (E. F. .) The Foundations of 
Liberty. 254p. Methuen, 1908. 

[Aims at setting forth Liberty, Personal and 
National not as a mere Utility, as is usually the 
case but as an a priori moral necessity, the sine 
qv.d non of all true civilisation. Great use is 
made of Wordsworth's works, the philosophy of 
which, political and moral, is wonderfully adapted 
to the problems of the present time.] 



Stephen. ( Retjin-ald) Democracy and Char- 
acter. 22op. ' Williams & Norgate, 1908. 

[Christianity is the only force adequate for 
social regeneration. Democracy needs Christi- 
anity in all its fulness; a religion of genuine 
earnestness and sincerity, a social and adocrmatir 
ami sacramental religion.! 

r</rd (C. Austin) Politics. A Lecture 
delivered at Columbia University, Fel>. 12. 
1908. 35p. Columbia Univ. Press, 1908. 

IV alias (Graham) Human Nature in 
Politics. 31 8p. Constable, 1908. 

[ An attempt to study the behaviour, unconscious 
as well as conscious, irrational as well as rational, 
of man as a "political animal." Review will 
follow.] 

Stawell (F. Melian) The Modern (/.in- 
ception of Justice. 

Inter. J. Eth., Oct. 1908. 

[Argues that the whole problem of political 
and social justice is bound up with the question 
of immortality.] 

Glasenapp (G. von) Die Leviratselic : 
Eine soziologische Studie. 
Vierteljahrssch. f. w. Phil., xxxii. 3, 19 )8. 

Deploige (S. ) Le conflit de la morale et 
de la sociologie (suite). 

Rev. Neo-Scolastique, Nov. 1908. 

almer(P.) Police des inomra et traite 
drs blanches. 

R. du Christianisme social, .Sept. M<08. 

[Relates the proceedings of this year's assembly 
at Geneva of the International Federation for the 
abolition of the State regulation of vice.] 

Plini (G. B.) Influenza delle Religion! 
sulla Civilta. Ccenobium, July 1908. 

Quicvreux (A.) La morale sans Dieu. 

R. chvet., Oct. and Nov. 1908. 

Giiizard (G.) La morale de M. Payot. 

R. prat. d'Apologet., Oct. 1, 1908. 

[Study of the " lay " moral system of Payot, 
whose work is said to have formed the mentality 
of thousands of French teachers.] 

Richard (A.) La premiere conference 

internationale des Ligues sociales d'acheteurs. 

R. du Christianisme social, Sept. 1908. 

[Reports the discussions of this Consumers' 
League at Geneva. 600 members adhered pro- 
fessors, workmen, priests, pastors, liberals and 
socialists.] 

Lilly ( W. S. ) The Right of the Father. 
Fort. R., Nov. 1908. 

Chastand (G.) Le respect de la femme. 
R. du Christianisme social, Sept. 1908. 

[Declaring that women are in a state of 
servitude, and claiming their moral and civil 
emancipation.] 

Low (Frances If.) The Orphanage: its 
Reform and Re-creation. 

19th Cent., Sept. 1908. 

Surd (Annie G. ) Lost Homes and New 
Flats. Cont. R., Nov. 1908. 

27 Anon. Liberal Policy and Religions 
Education in Ireland and in England. 

Church Q.R., Oct. 1908. 

[Requires the same spirit and same policy in 
English elementary educational proposals as was 
shown in the recent settlement of the Irish 
University question.] 

Ponaard (P.) L'education du sentiment 
esthetique chez les enfants (conclusion). 

R. prat. d'Apologet., Aug. 15, 1908. 

Thone (P.) L'apostolat par Peducation. 
R. du Clerge frar^ais, Oct. 15, 1908. 

[A study in the principles of education.] 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 475 



Wordsworth (Miss E.) The Higher 

Education of Women. 

Church Q.R., Oct. 1908. 
[Partly a retrospect, partly an estimate. J 
Windle (Bertram C. A.) The Future 

Universities of Ireland. Dub. R., Oct. 1908. 
30 Block (Iwan) The Sexual Life of our 

Time in its relation to Modern Civilisation. 

Translated from the 6th German edition 

by M. Eden Paul. 806p. Rebman, 1908. 

F PASTORALIA. 2 Sermons. 

Archer- Shepherd (E. H.) The Ritual of 

the Tabernacle : A Devotional Study. 168p. 

Rivingtons, 1908. 

I Special object is to interpret the not least 
important part of the Old Testament in terms of 
the New.] 

Monod (A.) Le debit oratoire. 

R. chret., Oct. and Nov. 1908. 

[Address on preaching to students for the 
ministry.] 

Bain (John A.} Questions answered by 
Christ. 246p. Andrew Melrose, 1908. 

(Thirty-six sermons. ] 

Ballard (Frank] Does it matter what 
a Man Believes ? and other Themes for 
Thought. 253p. Culley, 1908. 

[Nine sermons.] 

Mutheson (George) Messages of Hope. 
294p. James Clarke, 1908. 

[These brief sevmonettes are largely the pro- 
duct of the author's latest hours.] 

Jones (J. D.} Things Most Surely 
Believed. 224p. James Clarke & Co. 

[Sermons preached on Sunday evenings in the 
course of a ministry in Richmond Hill.] 

G BIOGRAPHY. 2 English. 

Godet.(I\) Fr.-X. Funk. 

11. du Clerge francais, Oct. 15, 1908. 

[Obituary notice of a member of the Catholic 
Theological Faculty at Tubingen. ] 

AlphamUry (P.) Jean Reville. 

R. dc 1'Hist. des Rel.. May 1908. 

[Obituary notice of the late editor. M. de Faye 
adds a review of his historic and scientific work.] 

Barbano (0. M, } Henriette Renau. 

Coanobium, July 1908. 

Birrell ( Oliw) The Early Days of Joseph 
Blanco White. Cont. R., Oct. 1908. 

Netvman (Cardinal) John Keble : An 
Unpublished Fragment. Dub. R., Oct. 1908. 

Ward ( Wilfrid.) Ten Personal Studies. 
With 10 Portraits. 319p. 

Longmans, 1908. 

[Essays reprinted from quarterly R., 19th 
Century, and Fort. R., on Balfour, Delane and 
Button and Knowles, SJdgwick, Lord Lytton, 
Father Ryder, Grant Duff, Leo XIII., Wiseman, I 
Newman, and Newman and Manning.] 

H HISTORY, x Persecutions C Chris- \ 
tian M Mediaeval R Modern 2 English. 

x Bacchus (F. J.) The Neronian Persecu- ; 
tion. Dub. R., Oct. 1908. j 

C Crescenzi (A.) Iconografia lauretana. 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog., Oct. 1908. \ 
[Classifying the iconographic material relating ! 
to the house of Loretto, and fixing its relation to 
the tradition.] 



Dibelius (0.) Studien zur Geschichte der 
Valentinianer. 

Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss., Heft 8, 1908. 

[I. Die Excerpta ex Theodoto und Irenaus.] 

Dragoni (D.) Le Apologie correnti dell' 
Inquisizione. 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog., Sept. 1908. 

Drdseke (J. ) Zwei griechische Apologeten. 
Ztschr. f. wiss. Th., Sept. 1908. 

[Review of Getfcken's work under the above 
title (Leipzig and Berlin, 1907).] 

Fornari (F.) Bollettino Archeologico. 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog., Sept. 1908. 

Lanzoni(F.) Culmen Apostolicum. 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog., Oct. 1908. 

[Brings epigraphical evidence to show that this 
title originally was given to any bishop.] 

Mwszey (D. S.) Were the Spiritual 
Franciscans Montanist Heretics? III. Anti- 
hierarchism. Amer. J. Th., Oct. 1908. 

[No. The resemblances are accidental, their 
aims and methods were widely divergent.] 

Stefano(A. de) L'Attivita Letteraria dei 
Valdesi primitivi. 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog., Oct. 1908. 

[Claiming a greater literary activity and com- 
petence than is generally recognised.] 

Vacandard (E.) La deposition des 
Eveques. 

Rev. du Clerge franeais, Aug. 15, 1908. 

[Historical account of what deposition and 
degradation have meant, and what their conse- 
quences have been.] 

Sternberg (G.) Das Christen turn des 
fiinften Jahrhunderts im Spiegel der 
Schriften des Salvianus von Massilia. 

Th. St. u. Krit., Heftl, 1909. 

Deissmann (D. Adolf) Das Urchristentum 
und die unteren Schichten. 2te Aufl. 

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1908. 

[An address given at the 19th Evangelical Social 
Congress at Dessau on 10th June 1908.] 

Batiffol (Pierre) L'Eglise naissante et 
le Catholicisme. 51 6p. 

J. Gabalda & Cie, 1909. 

[A history of the origin of Catholicism, and of 
the notion of authority in the institution of the 
Church.] 

R Guiraud (/.) Chronique d'histoire de la 
Revolution. 

R. prat. d'Apologet., Aug. 15, 1908. 

[With special reference to its effects upon the 
French Church.] 

2 Bridges (George Fox) The Oxford Re- 
formers and English Church Principles: 
Their Rise, Trial," and Triumph. Prepared 
for publication and partly rewritten by 
Rev. W. G. Bridges, M.A. 817p. 

Elliot Stock, 1908. 

1 INDIVIDUAL CHURCHES AND 
WRITERS. C Fathers 2 E.G. 
Church 3 Anglican. 

Bishop (W. C.) The "Three Weeks' 
Advent " of Liber Offiiciorum S. Hilarii. 

J. Th. St., Oct. 1908. 

[The Advent season is not meant, but a period 
of preparation before Epiphany, prescribed origin- 
ally for candidates for the Epiphany baptisms.] 
C Stakemeler (B. ) La Dottrina di Tertulli- 
ano sui sacramenti della Penitenza dell' Or- 
dinazione et del Matrimonio. 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog., Sept. 1908. 



47 li 



THE HIBHERT JOURNAL 



(JET. /.) The Chronology of 
Ettsebius' " Maitm of P^tine," 

ftenuathena, joodr., 1 



The Arehbishopric oKYpros. 

ChurehQ.fc, Oet 1908. 

:>. ; - ^>v:v : i>.e ttpSn *5 :o :'.u 



sur la 



&*f* tf 
neutraliS 



sookire aux peres de fauill* de tar pays. 
Octi ? i90S. 



K. in 




tottaeir* 

On Consideration. Trans- 
s:;v:b. QMHM Lwm, Ittm 

JE: 1^1908, 



R. prat. d*Apolog*t, Oet 1, 1908. 
t (If.) La verifee da Catholicisme. 
II. La valour prohant* du miracle. 

R. da Clerg* ftan$*is, NOT. 1, 1908. 
JfeN&urrf (A) Le Cathofiqne et la 
question da poavoir coereitif de tt&giise. 

& mat d'ApoIoget, Aug. 15, 1908. 
(A. GatlMmc wty tJuclin for ttw redeclloa of 

-.< 



aonittCM. 

Kir. stor.-criu d. Sewu TtoL, Sept. 190& 
[DMtilMB tk abwwof tk ttM. Acidly ttw 

M4 Of MIMtic WfcM. rt4tTith Uw 



Exhortation an <ase. 
It da Qati fn*us Oct. 1, 190& 



L IA r*lr historiqu* des UTWS sinr^ 

B. du Gkrgc frw^is, Oct. 1, 1908. 
*ot*<^* 



UK U Strri** (Jl) La w 
Belknnini. (Kblioaieqae de 
ft.) 780 n, 
^i i> 5 !lt QI^ p^ ltog ^ 




. *) Tlie Mystical Element of 
studied in Saint Catherine of 
her friends. 2 ToK 4S9p.+ 

4 ^%is - -i^' 1908 : 

ESSLaiJT^ 

ar>ila< naject \m ^. - 

ateciapay.awl te the ntko3 

53 ^ BMlM -:..: ...w - 

' '.:-.: >'.' :... v-' .-* . r-.-.: . 

MM! fcigKA tf>*K^yn 

Dab, R., Oet 1908. 

Ifeytt (OBM) The KoeharistK Con- 
BMK ISttOwt, Oat 1986, 

$ A~m. The Lambeth Conference, 

V:. IMS. 



Chexl 



4 Aline** (0.} Nee Katechismwsst 

Th. St u. Krit. Heft 1, 19 
(Deals with, IIL. the Oatechiua of Ju 
:> nUftM 



,.,: . :> n 

dtlai >v -.^. 

(IT. Jf.) The Presbyterian 
: A Brief Account of its Doctrine, 
Worship, and Polity. 




A nviw v/. >' L'auiuouerie urx>wsfeiut* des 
r*r.s MMiMlHO, 
R, chwt . Sept and Oet l^OS. 
a ProtMtartpriaoa eaaplaiali work.] 
:: . . : : F-'. .;.,.: '. ' 

the Shorter Catechism. 

Princeton Th. R.. Oot 1908. 
anmfc hrttenv 



L LITERATURE. 2 JN^i** 



*V I*m (Fnme**) Mark Rutheiforvi 
Appreciation. Fort K t Sept. 1908. 

\V HoSt (W. 0.) Francis Thomjeon . In 
Mewnaa. Dub. R., Oct. 1908. 

J*fn*m (H. ff.) Mr Frederic Hani- 
> . > State Church Q.R., Oet 1908. 



t of his 

r s! . i ,.Vrt HVVria) Plots' 

in fiction. Dub. R., Oet 1908. 

Atktri** (Gut*t*U) The Gorgeous Isle. 

191p, John Murray, 1908. 

3 J*MlA3Mis(Jr*rl) Goethe and IHstaloni. 

ttlp, Durr, 1908. 

5 Anja (Mary Wimsb*) Dante and 

Shakespeare. 19th Cent, Oet 1908. 

GHay (S.) Dante's Intuition of the 

Infinite. Cont R., NOT. 1908. 

7 GriWt (Fnmds) Tolstoy and 

Tobtoyans. Fort R., Sent 1908. 

C--r R Sop- 190S. 
7 J*mm*ire(J.) Souvenirs de Grece. 

Rev. chret, Sept 1908. 

: ., - .- ., -.<:: : X :..-><:-? ' 

9 Mmntt (R A), t Anthropology and 



iv::v;nxi bafbn 
the University of Oxford, by A. J. Evans, 
A. Lang, Gilbert Murray, F. R Jerons, 
J. L. Myres, and W. W. Fowler. 201 p. 

190% 



M RELIGIONS. BfYTHOLOGY. 4 
Himthtin*. 7 JWoim. 9 

ta 



: - > -.-:; 
tnn to Eastern and 



estern Religions. 
Fort i: N w 1908, 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 477 



to reeesi Coacress tat the 

The historical relaifett cf 
to tbe fttate have been 



**&'*** to the We* Tbe 
was at mo time called to to 



__ 

ftedatr.) Pr0 
.) Le 



i(A.) Le probleme de la mart ehez 
lee noo-cmlises. (1st art) 

dn GTerge' francais, Oet 1, 1908. 
of tbe rftoTeonaeefed with 



and mourning, with a riew to 
show the uniYewaJtty of belief to a fife beyond 



and 



(ft) 



[Drroied to Mithrmum.] 

VwUcmoMi. Die Idee der Ei.twick- 
lang ab KlaMfikationsprump der B^li- 
r o r Th. St. n. Krit, Heft 1, 1909. 

) Tot^mume et m&hode 



R.del*HwLdeRel.. July 1908. 
the dfwoMioa fntti^cd bf 



CM*g(H*iao) The Book of litisl Duty. 
Translated by Iran Chen. (Wisdomoftie 
East Series.) 0p. Murray, 190ft. 

7 BriwutU.) Chez V* I 
liberal 



LTJ 



e Israelite, 
R.duClergfraiKSis, HOT. 1,1908. 



Canobium, July 1908. 



8 Baa(Z.) Bulletin des periodiqua. de 
ITslam (1903-1907). Irtpsru 



Tontain to the May number.] 
Hubert (O.) LTustoire des religions et la 

Annsles de PhiL ehret, Aug. 1908. 

Jfoy Mteawuire) Chez les primitifs 

afrieains, I. Rer. de PhiL, Sept 1908. 

[On then- notion* of the invisible world, tbe 

MLthSBirNB,ae4. 

*rrr (Reginald) In Old Ceylon. 
dmtdlnsid, L946. 
r.) On the Coromandel Coast 
Smith, Elder * Co., 1908. 
W.) Orientalia. 

Interpreter, Oet 1908. 
! account of tbe Internattoaal CongreaMa 
of this year to Bertto and Copenhsfeaw) 
Rti**ch(8.) Phaethon. 

R. de THist desRd., Jury 1908. 

asoittetel rltas, the wrUer aj^Ttheorifto of thi* 

% > . ^.V.^.Yl-*/ V* 1 

ToirfasVs (/.) i/histoire des religions et 
le totemiame a propoa d*nn lirre recant 

R. de rfliat des ReL, May 1908. 
Kenel's CuUet tOtteww de Burnt: 



Persian and Engjiah Text. Introd. by Sir 
A. K. WoOaaton. 99p. Murray, 1908. 

Bra&fard (H. N.) Modernim in Islam. 
Fort R., Sept. 1908. 

Morristm (Theodore) Can Islam be Re- 
formed! 19th Cent, 1908. 
12 Man (Oerhardt C.) The Interpretation 
of Life. 813p. Appkton, 1908. 

I An effort to here nade to chow the geoeni 
reader the relattoo of Modern 
Seieaee.] 



(F.) Fommles magjqves de 



L 



R. del^Hist desReL, Jnly 1906. 



P PHILOSOPHY. 10 

88 .. Piyekital Raearck, 40 .. 
.. l^i<, 70 



'/*. C. 
-x* JVMI^ 

M. KneicaIUit i* 

Yow*g(P.N.T.) 



* i:.-. . 



fin connection with 



1908. 



Ir.>ri,-t*:. CK-. i; 
Mia Marge** book, 

de seze 



3 <?A (ff.) Dn 
dam 16 conUa celtiqaes. 

R. de 1'Hist des ReL, May 1908. 

4 Segcntodt (T.) Les Asoras dans la reli- 
gion Ftfique (concluded). 

R. de 1'Hist des ReL, May 1908. 

5 /Vmarift (. <fe la VaU6e) Bonddhismeet 
1'apologetiqt 



Ddacnix (H.) Le iir= Congres Inierna- 
Rer. PhiL, Kor. 1908. 

History of Philosophy. * 2nd ed., revised 
and enlarged. 627 p. 

MadehoseftSons, 

[Theaeetioai 

plndMasL] 

IF// (Jr. 

pr^-" '-^ ~ 

RerT Neo^colsa%ne, HOT. 1908. 
10 -gutter (IF. If.) AHewTypeofHataraJ 

Inter. J. Etb, r Oet 1908. 

12 ITtar ( JT. ^.) Erne Kintahmg der philo- 

PnnSpS. 
Yiertdjahraseh. t w. PhiL, TTTO. 3, 1908. 






^trfaor o/ O "Orrf of ChritLT The 
Creed of Boddha. 308p. John Lane, 1908. 

[Berfew win follow.] 

DahUce(PaiO) Buddhist Essays. Trans- 
lated from the German by Bbikkhn 80a- 
cara. 38p. Marmfllan, 1908. 




13 f'*Unnki(fr.Jf.) L'enefgiepotentielle: 
Estcelfennerealitfc! Rer. PhiL, Oct. 1908. 



JF. C.) 
S 



RontgeaRays. 
ce Progreas, Oet 1908. 
Bat*) Heredity sad 



(W. 
Eadimn at Dublin. 

Seienee Progress, Oet 1908. 

Hartog (Mare**) The Transmission of 

Acquired Characters. Cont R., Sept 1906. 



478 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



Reid (G. Archdall) The Alleged Trans- 
mission of Acquired Characters. 

Cont. R. , Oct. ] 908. 

Hartog (Marcus) The Transmission of 
Acquired Characters : A Rejoinder. 

Cont. R., Nov. 1908. 

Hubr<>cht(A. A. W.) Darwinism rersuis 

Wallaceism. Cont. R., Nov. 1908. 

Cunningham (J. T.) The Evolution of 

Man. Science Progress, Oct. 1908. 

Berthau(M.) Extrinsecisrne. 

R. prat. d'Apologet, Oct. 1, 1905. 
[Discusses the metaphysics of Evolution.] 

14 Mansion ( Paul) Gauss contre Kant sur la 
geometric non euclidienne. 

Rev. Neo-Scolastique, Nov. 1908. 

15 M'Taggart (J. Ellis) The Unreality of 
Time. * Mind, Oct. 1908. 

[Author holds that time is unreal, and bases bis 
view on the fact that the distinctions of past, 
present, aud future are essential to time. Since 
these distinctions are never true of reality, there- 
fore no reality is in time.] 

Leighttm (J. A.) Time, Change, and 
Time-Transcendence. 

J. of Phil., Oct. 8, 1908. 

[Time-transcendence means, not the negation 
of change, but the persistence, through change, 
of an organised unity of ends that preserves the 
effective continuity of its purposes throughout 
the (from any finite point of view) endless succes- j 
sion of events.] 

16 Duhem (P.) Le mouvement absolut et le 
mouvement relatif. x. 

Rev. de Phil., Sept. 1908. 
21 Chovet (F.) Les principes de la raison 
sont-ils reductibles a I'unit6 ? 

Rev. dePhil., Sept. 1908. 

Nunn (T. Percy) On the Concept of 
Epistemological Levels. 

Proc. Aris. Soc., N.S., viii., 1908. 

[The cognitive process is at every stage only an 
aspect of the development of a conative system, 
and its character cannot be understood apart 
from the affective aspect exhibited by the system 
at the same level.] 

Gomperz (Heinrich) Weltanschauungs- 
lehre. Ein Versuch die Hauptprobleme 
der allgemeinen theoretischen Philosophic 
geschichtlich zu entwickeln und sachlich I 
zu bearbeiten. Bd. ii. Noologie : erste \ 
Halfte, Einleitung und Semasiologie. 
305p. Diederich, 1908. 

Bakewell (Charles M.) On the Meaning 
of Truth. Phil. R., Nov. 1908. 

[Truth is always conceiving a particular object | 
in the light of its " idea," its concrete universal, i 
that is to say, simply conceiving it in its total { 
context or setting. The idealist and the realist j 
over-emphasise the objective side of truth ; the 
pragmatist over-emphasises the subjective side.] 

Creighton (J. E.) The Nature and 
Criterion of Truth. Phil. R., Nov. 1908. 

[The prajzmatist criticism is effective against 
any view that regards thought as something by 
itself in abstraction from the material of ex- 
perience. Idealists have often erred by robbing 
thought of all concrete meaning. Thinking is no 
closed process which develops truth according to 
an abstract principle of internal consistency, but 
is essentially a going to facts, a process of ex- 
periment and verification.] 

File (Warner) The Agent and the 
Observer. Phil. R., Sept. 1908. 

[Contrasts the point of view of having an ex- 
perience with that of contemplating the expres- 
sion of such an experience.] 



Fa,'lei/ (J. H.) Types of Unity. 

.1. .if Phil , Sept. 10, 1908. 

I The types are :-i. Individuality; ii. Indivisi- 
bility; iii. Mere wholeness or allness ; iv. un- 
tinuity of bare content; v. Concatenation ; vi. 
Harmony; vii. Kinsaathetlo purpose; viii. Tele- 
ological unity ; ix. Immediacy to all.] 

26 M' Down! I (S. A.) The Study of Heredity 
in relation to Freewill. 

Interpreter, Oct. 1908. 

27 Euckcn (Rudolf) Geistige Strumungi-n 
der Gegenwart iv tl umgearboitete Aull. 
422p. Veit&Co., 190!). 

i A new section on the Worth of Life is added, 
and extensive alterations are made in the text. 
The author criticises James' Pragmatism. | 

Lotto (R.) Purpose. 

Proc. Aris. Soc., N.S., viii., 1908. 

[Wherever we have process leading to a result, 
we have means and end ; and wherever there is 
means and end there is a certain degree ol 
systematic unity. This systematic unity in the 
essence and core of purpose.] 

28 Haldane(R.B.) The Methods of Modern 
Logic and the Conception of Intinity. 

Proc. Aris. Soc., N.S., viii., 1908. 
[Presidential Address, 1907. The real infinite 
must be regarded as a self-contained system 
which is real under the aspect of a process, a 
progress of notional development within which 
time aud space and the limited self of experience 
appear as stages, constituents, or moments.] 

Hodgson (Shad worth H.) The Idea of 
Totality. 

Proc. Aris. Soc., N.S., viii., 1908. 
[The Universe, of which we find ourselves a 
finite part, is to us a Whole in virtue of its con- 
tinuity with our actual experience, but a Whole 
which no human thought can grasp, that is, 
conceive as complete, limited, and finite. We 
have to think of it, as we perceive it, from 
within.] 

Brown (H. Chapman) Infinity and the 
Generalisation of the Concept of Number. 

J. of Phil., Nov. 5, 1908. 
33 Downey (Jane E.) Automatic Pheno- 
mena of Muscle Reading. 

J. of Phil., Nov. 19, 1908. 

40 M'Dougall (William) An Introduc- 
tion to Social Psychology. 370 p. 

Methuen. 1908. 

I Au attempt to deal with a difficult branch of 
psychology in a way that shall make it intelli- 
gible and interesting to any cultivated reader, 
and that shall imply no previous familiarity with 
psychological treatises on his part. Review will 
follow. J 

Lovcday (T.) Studies in the History of 
British Psychology : i. An Early Criticism 
of Hobbes. Mind, Oct. 1908. 

[An account of the work of William Lucy, 
Bishop of St David's, whose Observations, Cen- 
sures and Computations of Notorious Krrourx in 
Mr Hobbett was published in 1663.] 

41 Hicks (G. Dawes) The Relation of 
Subject and Object from the Point of View 
of Psychological Development. 

Proc. Aris. Soc., N.S., viii., 1908. 
[An attempt to ascertain the conditions upon 
which the origin of the distinction between sub- 
ject and object depends, and to trace its growth in 
the history of mind. The line of consideration 
followed leads to the conclusion that neither the 
matter nor the form of what is experienced c;m 
be shown to be due to the fact of experiencing. | 

Alexander (S.), Ward (J.), Read (C.), 
and Stout (G. F.) The Nature of Mental 
Activity. Proc. Aris. Soc. ? N.S., viii., 1908. 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 479 



[ \n important discussion. Professor Alexander 
maintains that mental activity in general can 
only be described in metaphorical terms, because 
of its extreme simplicity and its uniqueness. The 
best term is movement. In all our mental con- 
ditions, whether will, inference, perception, or 
sensation, we are aware of these movements, and 
these movements have direction and differ in 
direction.] 

52 Ho/mans (P. Hadelin) La genese des 
sensations d'apres Roger Bacon. 

Rev. Neo-Soolastique, Nov. 1908. 

53 Naka&lvima, (Taizo) The Time of Per- 
ception as a Measure of Differences in 
Sensations. J. of Phil., Oct. 8, 1908. 

57 Berguer (Georges) La notion de valeur : 
sa nature psychique, son importance en 
theologie. 36'5p. Georg & Cie, 1908. 

[Value is something that is neither purely 
objective nor purely subjective. We may con- 
ceive of it under the form of a relation between 
subject and object. The relation of value is 
affective in kind, and every affective relation is 
capable of becoming a relation or value.] 

Segond (J. ) La philosophic des valeurs. 

Rev. Phil, Nov. 1908. 
Titchener (E. Bradford) Lectures on the 
Elementary Psychology of Feeling and 
Attention. 412p. Macmillan, 1908. 

[Assuming that the material of consciousness, 
the stuff out of which mind is made, is ultimately 
homogeneous, the author sketches a theory of 
feeling, according to which " affections " appear 
as mental processes of the same general kind as 
sensations, and as mental processes that might, 
under favourable conditions, have developed into 
sensations.] 

Ribot (Th.) L'Autipathie : Etude psy- 

chologique. Rev. Phil., Nov. 1908. 

58 Pieron (H.) Les problemes actuels de 

1'instinct. Rev. Phil., Oct. 1908. 

60 Gibson (W. R. Boyce) The Problem of 

Logic. 512p. A. & C. Black, 1908. 

65 Bowden (H. Heath) A New Scientific 

Argument for Immortality. 

J. of Phil., Sept. 24, 1908. 
[A maw is immortal when he has won survival 
value in the social evolution of his consciousness, 
when he has lived himself so completely into the 
lives of others that the interests and values of 
his own life are only realised by being identified 
with theirs. Such an immortality is individual 
and personal, i.e. a definite mode of function or 
behaviour persists.] 

72 Lehmann (Ernst) Idee und Hyputhese 
bei Kant. 

Vierteljahrssch. f. w. Phil., xxxii. 3, 1908. 
[Sharply distinguishes ideas, in Kant's techni- 
cal sense, from hypotheses.] 

Watson (John) The Philosophy of Kant 
explained. 526p. Maclehose, 1908. 

[The result of a not unsuccessful experiment in 
the art of teaching continued over many years, 
the main object of which was to provide a 
method by which the tendency of the student to 
lean upon the authority of his teacher should be 
counteracted.] 

Kesselcr (Kurt) Die Lbsung dor Wider - 
spriiche des Daseins durch Kant und Eucken 
in ihrer religibsen Bedeutung : Eine philo- 
sophische Studie. 30p. 

G. Kreuschiner, 1909. 

73 Garr (H. Wildon) Impressions and , 
Ideas : The Problem of Idealism. 

Proc. Aris. Soc., N.S., viii., 1908. 
[A defence of Hume's scepticism as the only ! 
justifiable attitude in philosophy. The inference j 
from impressions and ideas to reality that is not 



experience is invalid because the inference is 
experience, and the thing inferred is but a con- 
: tent of the inference.] 

Cunningham (G. W.) The Significance 
of the Hegelian Conception of Absolute 
Knowledge. Phil. R., Nov. 1908. 

[According to Hegel, thought is genuinely objec- 
tive, transcending the relativity of individual 
experiences and being the determination of things 
as they are in themselves. Thought finds its capa- 
city to express the real in the fact that ite 
universals are always the syntheses of differences, 
and not the blank nniversals of purely formal 
logic.] 

74 Schinz (Albert) Professor Dewey's Pragma- 
tism. J. of Phil., Nov. 5, 1908. 
[Dewey is the most philosophical mind among 
the leading pragmatists, only his philosophy is at 
the expense of his pragmatism.] 

WQilvary (E. Bradley) The Chicago 
' ' Idea " and Idealism. 

J. of Phil., Oct. 22, 1908. 
[An examination of Prof. Dewey's use of the 
j term " idea." Writer can find no justification for 
Dewey refusing to accept the title of " idealist."] 
Moore (G. E.) Professor James' " Prag- 
matism." Proc. Aris. Soc., N.S., viii., 1908. 
[A very able criticism of the things which J ames 
says about truth in his recent book. The paper 
is mainly concerned with a discussion of the two 
j propositions : " That all our true ideas are use- 
ful," "That all ideas, which are useful, are 
j true."] 

Armstrong A. C.) The Evolution of 
Pragmatism. J. of Phil., NOT. 19, 1908. 
[Discusses : i. Pragmatism as a methodological 
doctrine ; ii. Pragmatism and Subjectivism ; iii. 
Relation to Humanism ; iv. Varieties of the prag- 
matic method in its stricter meaning ; T. Pragma- 
tism and Metaphysics.] 

Johnson (W. H.) Pragmatism, Human- 
ism, and Religion. 

Princeton Th. R., Oct. 1908. 

79 Hollands (E. H.) Neo-Realism and 

Idealism. Phil. R., Sept. 1908. 

[To start with relations and try to arrive at 
reals, or to start with reals and try to arrive at 
the relations of reals, are equally abstract pro- 
cedures. The concrete reality is a whole of 
related things ; and the metaphysical problem is 
What is the nature of this whole ?] 

Baillie (J. B. ) Professor Laurie's Natural 
Realism: i. The Epistemology of Natural 
Realism. Mind, Oct. 1908. 

[A very appreciative exposition of Laurie's 
philosophy. Author regards the Synthetica as 
one of the greatest contributions to speculative 
philosophy which has appeared in English for 
many years.] 

Sdlars(R. W.) Critical Realism and the 
Time Problem, i. and ii. 

J. of Phil., Sept. 20 and Oct. 22, 1008. 
[Real time is identifiable with change ; reality, 
as a process, is complicated; and the more com- 
plicated a part is, the greater the complexity and 
the intensity of change.] 

80 Adamson (Robert) The Development of 
Greek Philosophy. Edited by Prof. W. R. 
Sorley and R. P. Hardie. 337p. 

Blackwood, 1908. 

[An exceedingly valuable series of lectures 
The treatment of the Platonic Theory of Ideas 
and of the Philosophy of Aristotle is especially 
suggestive and original. A review will follow. ] 
82 Steiner (E.) I Filosofi Greci Prima di 
Platone, alia luce della sapienza del Misteri. 
Ccenobium, July 1908. 
[Examining in particular the relation of the 
teaching of Democritus to the Mysteries.] 



480 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



84 Temple ( W. ) Plato's Vision of the Ideas. 
Mind, Oct. 1908. 

[In the Ideal Theory we have a doctrine to 
which logic and intuition have both contributed. 
Author tries to show the process by which he 
believes that the theory in its full form arose.] 

Kinkcl ( Walter} Geschichte der Philo- 
sophic als Einleitung in das System der 
Philosophic. Theil ii. Von Socrates bis 
Plato. 166p. Topelmann, 1908. 

Paul ( Herbert) The Method of Plato. 

19th Cent., 1908. 

89 Belmont.(Seraphin) L'existence de Dieu 
d'apres Dims Scot. 

Rev. de Phil., Sept. 1908. 

90 Rand (Benjamin) Modern Classical 
Philosophers. Selections illustrating Modem 
Philosophy from Bruno to Spencer. 753p. 

Constable, 1908. 

[A useful series of extracts, containing some of 
the essential features of the chief philosophical 
systems. Some of the translations, e.g. that of 
Hegel's Phenomenology by Koyce, appear here 
for the tirst time.] 

Brett (G.S.) The Philosophy of Gassendi. 
355p. Macmillan, 1908. 

[A careful and systematic account of the main 
lines of thought of a much-neglected thinker. 
The lx)ok is divided into four parts the first 
dealing with the Logic, the second with the 
Physics, the third with the Ethics, and the fourth 
giving a general review of the system.] 

91 Lederbagen (F.) Friedrich Schlegels 
Geschichtsphilosophie : Ein Beitrag zur 



Genesis der historischeu Weltanschauung. 

165p. 

Verlag der Durr'schen Buchhandlung, 1908. 

[ Attempts to estimate the signiflcanceof Schlegel 
in the genesis of the historical Weltanschauung.} 
94 Thilly (Frank) Friedrich Paulsen. 

J. of Phil., Sept 10, 1908. 

[An appreciative sketch by an old pupil.] 

Miigge (M. A.) Friedrich Nietzsche: 
His Life and Work. 452p. Unwiu, 1908 

[Written for the purpose of gaining for Nietzsche 
some appreciation and justice in the English- 
speaking world. The sketch of his works has 
been written in imitation of that by Hollitscher.] 

Crespie (A.) La Metafisica di Henri 
Bergson. Ccenobiura, July 1908. 



V ART. 



Sacred Musi,:. 



Lalo (Oh.) Le nouveau sentimentalisme 
esthetique. Rev. Phil., Nov. 1908. 

Auden (T.) The Relation between Re- 
ligion and Architecture. 

Interpreter, Oct. 190S. 

[Briefly tracing how the primitive religion 
and primitive architecture developed historically 
together.] 

30 Barker (Ethel Ross) Buried Herculan- 
eum. 269p. Adam & Charles Black, 1908. 

[The aim Of this book is to give an account of 
past excavations at Herculaneum ; to describe, 
as they once were, those buildings that have been 
stripped of their treasures, left in ruins, ami 
reburied ; and to connect with the buildings 
where they originally stood the bronzes and 
marbles now in the Museum at Naples.] 



[NoxB. For an explanation of the system of classification adopted in the Bibliography, 
readers are referred to HIBBERT JOURNAL, vol. i. p. 630 sqq.] 

G. D. H. and J. H. W. 



THE 

HIBBERT JOURNAL 



CREDO. 1 

I BELIEVE in one God, Just, Merciful and Holy: Eternal 

Being, Infinite in Wisdom, Unchangeable in Purpose, 
Ldorable in Majesty, Ineffable in Perfection ; for ever 
blessing and for ever Blessed. 

I believe in God as the Absolute and Only Good: in 
horn there is Peace beyond all unrest; Harmony beyond 

discord ; Victory beyond all defeat : I believe that the 
rhole Creation is moving towards the fulness of His Glory, 
id that He is for ever reconciling the World unto Himself. 

I believe in God as the Beginning of Wisdom and the Satis- 
ition of Desire ; the Life of all life and the Soul of every 
>ul ; Revealed and yet Hidden ; Present and yet Beyond ; 
jght of all Thought and Substance of all Things ; sustaining 
ic World by the Immanence of His Will, and Transcending 
te World in the Glory of His Being, the Depth of His 
Counsels, and the unsearchable Riches of His Love. 

1 believe in the Self-communication of God in every soul ; 
rhereby the lost is found ; the broken healed ; the seeker 

jwered ; the perishing made imperishable ; and the finite 

iture clothed upon with Infinitude and Immortality. 

I believe in a Divine Universe, revealing the Eternal Mind 
tto a Perfect Day ; Radiant with the Beauty of God ; the 

1 Copyrighted in the HIBBERT JOURNAL in Great Britain and in the United 
ites of America. 

VOL. VII. No. 3. 481 31 



482 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Temple of His Holiness, Built and still Building ; the Word 
of His Wisdom, Spoken and Speaking for ever; the Habitation 
of Souls : I believe in the Reign of Law which is the Reign 
of Love : I believe in the Everlasting Gospel of the Kingdom 
of God Everlasting and therefore ever-renewed, Ever-living 
in its essence and therefore ever-changing in its form. 

I believe that I am in God, and of God, and for God ; 
that He is mine and that 1 am His ; that from Him I came 
forth and to Him I return ; that by Him I am throughly 
known, righteously judged, and graciously loved. 

I believe in the Brotherhood of Man ; in the Communion of 
Saints ; in the Holy Catholic Church of all worshipping souls ; 
in the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant ; and in 
the inspiration of the Prophets, past, present, and to come. 

I believe that the faithful is justified and that the wicked 
has his due ; that the merciful is blessed ; that the mourner 
shall be comforted ; that the pure in heart shall see God ; 
that Death shall be swallowed up in Victory, and that the 
Righteous shall shine as the stars, for ever and ever. 

I believe that Man is free and responsible ; immortal and 
divine ; of one Nature with God ; imperfect but called to 
Perfection; good in becoming Better, wise in becoming 
Wiser, dying to Live : and I believe in the inexhaustible 
Riches of Eternal Truth, Immutable in Essence, but Endless 
in Progression and All-comprehensive in Diversity. 

This I believe : a Covenant and a Promise ; a Light of the 
Life that is ; an Assurance of Life to come ; True but in- 
complete ; sufficing for present Knowledge, but falling short 
of the Glory that shall be revealed : I believe that other 
Words will be given, though we cannot bear them now : and 
I look for the fuller Vision yet to be ; and for the endless 
transformation of all souls into the Nearer Likeness of God. 





CREDO 483 

Religion is the consciousness of a spirit which knows 
itself to be one with the Highest and Mightiest. In religion 
there is and must be something dogmatic, authoritative, 
irrevocable, even defiant. What religion announces is a 
final decision, which may not be withdrawn, modified, or made 
the subject of negotiation under any circumstance whatsoever. 
It is the soul's ultimatum to the universe. If in one sense 
religion is the humblest of attitudes, in a deeper sense it is the 
ost exalted. It claims to overcome the world and to put all 
gs under its feet. Religion is content with nothing less 
n the absolute submission of the entire range of human 
perience to itself. Opposition only quickens it into completer 
self-assertion, and the hour when its foes are most active is 
e hour of its firmest carriage. When the highest interests 
the soul are being threatened, and the foundations of life 
on the point of being swept away, religion rises up with 
an answering menace, and delivers its ultimatum in the teeth 
of the facts. " For this cause," it cries, " came I unto this 

tur. Yea, though he slay me, yet will I trust him." It is 
s pillar of fire which burns at its brightest in the blackest 
jht. It is the trumpet-call of man's inconquerable soul 
breathing a challenge to all the armies of doubt, sorrow, and sin. 
The majesty of Religion is self-supported, and her authority 
is never merged in that of her ambassadors. Her splendours 
are unadorned, and she needs no devices of man's wit to make 
her acceptable. She has no alter ego, and refuses to be 
identified with that which is voted good by the majority. She 
is no member of the Grand Committee of Human Interests, 
'o pass off Religion as Morality, Art, Science, singly or 
ther, is to mistake the viceroy for the monarch and to 
ore the hiding-place of Power. She will not be harnessed 
to the yoke of any human purpose whatsoever, and suffers no 
man to commend her as a thing that is likely to please. 

Religion has no fellowship with idols ; is never disguised ; 
cannot be hidden under a phrase, nor revealed by a dance of 
thin abstractions. Of all the idols that usurp her place, those 




484 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

are the vainest that are built up out of words. The vainest 
but the most eagerly run-after in every age that boasts 
enlightenment. They are set up in the market-place ; they 
deck the shop- windows of Eloquence ; men sell them for 
money in the House of God. Religion weeps over these 
things as Christ wept over Jerusalem; and again she drives 
them from the Temple with a whip of small cords. 

Before the overwhelming immensities of the universe, 
Religion alone remains unabashed. The doom of Earth is 
written in the sky ; human life, through uncounted genera- 
tions, is but a breath breathed forth into voids of endless time ; 
the sun and the planets short-lived as a dance of fireflies on a 
summer night. All is as nothing. To an imagination like 
Carlyle's which has opened its arms to the terrors of Time and 
Space, or looked upon the littleness of man, as Dante's did, 
from the empyrean height, there comes a moment when 
Hope and Faith shrivel out of being and the very will to 
live expires. The soul is on the point of total collapse 
beneath the weight of the Everlasting No. Then it is, when 
all seems lost, that the mighty heart of Religion begins to 
beat. She knows that her hour has come : " Out of the deep, 
O Lord, I cried unto Thee, and Thou heardest me." None 
save a being infinitely greater than the world would be aware 
of his own infinite littleness within the world. Religion is the 
soul of that being. It is the shock of the entire universe of 
sense that has to be met ; the deeps of immensity have poured 
out their legions, clad in the iron raiment of inexorable law ; 
armies of negation are encamped beneath the walls and 
battering at the gates. This is the challenge ; and well may 
we say that all is needed, and nothing less would suffice, to 
stir the soul of man into that final act of self-expression 
which we call Religion. 

Unbroken by the cosmic challenge, Religion runs no risk 
of succumbing to any lesser strain. Summoned to action by 
the evils of the human lot, she gathers enthusiasm from the 




CREDO 485 

magnitude of her task. Just because she is the spirit of the 
Best she rises to her greatest when she knows the Worst. 
Undisguised in her own majesty, she penetrates every disguise 
that is used to cover the malignancy of her foe. That evil 
should be extenuated or proved not to be ; that black should 
be painted white ; that the groaning and travailing of creation 
should be hushed up or put out of sight this is no prayer of 
hers. Things are as they are ; new names do not alter them ; 
evil is evil, pain is pain, death is death ; and it is only by 
accepting them in their naked reality that Religion can be true 
to herself. Let them be what they are, and she will deal with 
em. Let the sinner be a sinner and she will put her arms 
und him ; let the sheep be veritably lost and she will recover 
em ; let evil come armed to the battle and she will draw 
sword ; let the gloom thicken and her radiance shall glow 
e the noonday ; let life be tragic and she will lift it up 
ong the stars. 

When thou hearest the fool rejoicing, and he saith, f It is over and past. 
And the wrong was better than right, and hate turns into love at the last, 
And we strove for nothing at all, and the gods are fallen asleep ; 
For so good is the world agrowing that the evil good shall reap ' : 
Then loosen thy sword in the scabbard and settle the helm on thine head, 
For men betrayed are mighty, and great are the wrongfully dead." 

It follows that Religion is the deepest principle of unity 
ong men. The challenge she answers, the burden she lifts, 
e shock she encounters and repels, is one and the same for 
men everywhere. Wherever her authentic voice is heard, 
matter what its language, we feel that it speaks for us all ; 
e answer it makes is the answer we fain would give, the 
ttle it announces is the battle we are yearning to win. 

eligion may speak in propositions to which we cannot assent; 
ay practise rites we cannot join ; may build altars where we 
can lay no offering. But let it once appear that these things 
represent the self-assertion of a soul that is winning the 
victory over the world fearless of Nature, of Death, of 
Evil, of Immensity and who will not thankfully proclaim 




486 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that his own cause is being pleaded before high heaven ? 
who will not acknowledge that these brave ones are holding 
the fort when his own soul stands in jeopardy ? Shall there 
not be deepest blood - brotherhood between them and us ? 
Shall not love go forth, unfeigned and entire, towards these 
masters of the fate that threatens us all ? Is it not enough 
for unity that all men have one terror to face, one shock to 
encounter, one world to overcome, one agony to endure ? Are 
not the ultimate terms of the human compact wholly fulfilled 
by any soul of man that shows us the way in bearing up 
against these things ? Need we inquire into the secret of his 
endurance and refuse to accept him until he has answered 
when once we have seen that he endures ? 

The spirit that is in religion is that of uncompromising 
loyalty to the Highest. Its fealty is entire and requires no 
confirmation by an oath. It lives in the whole, loves the 
whole with a patriot's devotion, and passes into utterance, 
or into action, " with the felt strength of the universe at its 
back." Religion stands by a Cause; but this rests on no 
reasoning, for it is the Cause of Reason itself. Religion is 
not afraid of its future, suffers from no sense of insecurity, 
and speaks in language that is both triumphant and serene. 

Religion, therefore, does not apologise for itself, does not 
stand on the defensive, does not justify its presence in the 
world. If theorists would vindicate Religion, they may do 
so ; but Religion comes forth in the majesty of silence, like 
a mountain amid the lifting mists. 1 All the strong things 
of the world are its children ; and whatever strength is 
summoned to its support, is the strength which its own spirit 
has called into being. Religion never excuses its attitude, 
and when at last a Voice is lifted up it simply chants the 
Faith, until the deaf ears are unstopped and the dead in 
spirit come out of their graves to listen. There is nothing 
so masterful; and it speaks as one who has a right to the 

1 "The rest may reason, and welcome ; 'tis we musicians know." 



CREDO 487 

mastery. It is the major control of thought, to which all 
systems whatsoever bear witness, either silent or confessed. 
Authority is not what it requires, but what it confers. Its 
voice is peremptory but not violent, convincing but not 
tyrannical, and every truth that it announces passes insensibly 
into a command. Its indicatives are veiled imperatives ; 
and no hypothetical proposition ever escapes from its lips. 
So that, unless a man is overborne by his religion, we may 
ily say his religion is vain. 

Religion depends on no favourable conditions. It is a 
rain thing when we say one to another : " Go to now, let us 
take a garden in a sunny spot ; let us create a soft atmosphere 
>f happiness such as Religion loves ; let us build a mighty 
ledge of argument to shield this tender plant from the ravages 
>f the east wind." To argue thus is to look at life through 
wrong end of the telescope. It is not in man to make 
iligion what he would have her be, but only to be what 
iligion is making him. As weak, she makes him strong ; as 
lefeated, victorious ; as naked, she clothes him ; as exposed 
every desolating wind, she wraps her mantle around him 
id he is safe. Were it easy for the natural man to believe 
God there would be no such thing as Religion ; were even 
argument for morality a mere conclusion from premises 
tere would be no such thing as doing right. Unless the soul 
re greater than its arguments it would never see the gaps 
its own logic ; unless it were mightier than its deeds it would 
jver be aware of imperfection ; and it is only as conscious in 
himself of a Rational Will which is fully expressed in none 
of his achievements, either of logic or of life, that man is able 
to assert himself above his failures, and bridge the gaps between 
the actual and the ideal. " The righteous man," says Kant, 
" may say : I will that there should be a God ; I will that, 
though in this world of natural necessity, I should not be of 
it, but should also belong to a purely intelligible world of 
freedom ; finally, I will that my duration should be endless. 
On this faith I insist and will not let it be taken from me." 



488 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

To many who have inherited the Christian temper it may 
seem that statements such as these are at variance with the 
essential character of the spiritual life. That life is, before all 
else, meek and lowly, gentle and peaceable ; it vaunteth not 
itself, is not puffed up, is not easily provoked. Its note is self- 
repression, not self-assertion. The humble, the contrite, the 
broken-hearted are its chief exponents, and the perfect symbol 
of its spirit is the little child. It does not strive nor cry, nor 
smite with the sword ; its language is a prayer of submission 
arid not a challenge ; its deeds are the healing acts of love. 

Such a rejoinder is true in all that it affirms, and false in all 
that it denies. Every one of the qualities here affirmed is truly 
predicated of Religion, and Christianity in particular bases on 
them its claim to represent the highest stage in the evolution 
of the religious life. But these finer qualities are often com- 
mended in language and illustrated by examples which suggest 
that they have their original spring in some weakness of 
the soul. They are, rather, the perfect fruit of the soul's 
strength, daring, and energy. Forgetfulness of this has, 
perhaps, done more than all other causes put together to 
discredit Christianity in the modern world. Among other 
damage it has given occasion to the invective of Nietzsche, and 
to the whole literature of the self-assertion of unconverted man. 
The summit-truths are always the easiest to pervert. And 
the doctrine which makes religion the refuge of the weak, and 
declares that only failures are ever beaten to their knees, is 
precisely such a perversion. For what is self-repression ? Is 
it merely the turning of one's back on each particular object 
of desire, or the shutting of one's ear to every voice which 
cries "Lo here, lo there"? Were it only this, there would 
be no denying that in Nietzsche's philosophy Christianity has 
met its overthrow. But self-repression means infinitely more. 
Its essence is not the negative abandonment of the particular, 
but the dynamic grasp of the universal ; not the mere forsaking 
of the husks, but the rising up in the total strength of manhood 
and the arduous climbing of the path which was so easy in 



: 



CREDO 489 

cent. Self-repression is self-assertion or it is nothing. It 
presents the developing attack of the spirit on the Object 
of supreme desire, wherein the beggarly elements are not 
destroyed but transmuted first compelled into unconditional 
surrender and then enlisted and taken up as the working forces 
of the great design. The fruits of the Spirit in all their sweet 
easonableness are thus the fruits of a world that has been over- 
me ; and the world is not overcome by running away from 
its perishing shows. In Goethe's lines there is one word that 
seems to bear the emphasis of this pleading : 

Im Ganzen, Guten, Schonen 
Resolut zu leben. 

The great-heartedness of religion craves expression and 
ust be expressed. There is a moment in the act of worship 
en neither the prayer of contrition nor the hymn of 
oration will satisfy, when the Rational Will breaks the 
h of constraint with which the understanding has held it 
k, and launches itself in holy defiance, and with the full 
of its argument within it, against all that is irrational, 
, or terrible in the world. The precautions of apology and 
f-defence are now abandoned ; the baggage train is emptied 
d left behind ; the soul ceases to parley with Principalities 
and Powers, and, with a joy that is free from all fetters, 
lifts on high the battle-hymn of its faith. This moment is 
the very consummation of worship, gathering into itself the 
meaning of all that has gone before, and preluding a yet 
greater moment when faith passes into action and truth 
becomes a deed. When sincere, there is nothing which so 
stirs the pulses of the spiritual life, nothing which puts such 
power into the arm of the Good. Religion, no longer 
entrenched behind bulwarks, is now seen marching into the 
open like an army with banners, the Ark of the Covenant in 
the midst, and the priestly trumpeters going on before. 

Isaiah and Jesus had no other conception of religion than 
is. They spake with authority, and the note of triumph was 






490 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

in their voices. When they argued it was unto conviction. The 
sense of power, ruling by the divine right of Eternal Reason, 
and dependent on no temporal suffrages whatsoever, rings out 
in every prophet's cry. The attitude of self-defence is foreign 
to the prophet ; he must always attack, must always be of 
good cheer, must always go forth conquering and to conquer. 

" Gladness be with thee, Helper of the World ! 
I think this is the authentic sign and seal 
Of Godship, that it ever waxes glad, 
And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts 
Into a rage to suffer for mankind 
And recommence at sorrow." 

The attitude of self-defence is foreign even to the makers 
of the ancient creeds. Their creeds have been found in- 
adequate to the expanding reason of mankind, but their spirit 
has been fatally misunderstood. They have been treated as 
having no aim save that of laying down articles of agree- 
ment for the Church of God, signed, sealed, and delivered. 
Were that all, we might truly say that the labour was 
vain. But they sought to satisfy a deeper need. Then as 
now a word was wanted to sustain the courage and confirm 
the loyalty of the marching host. In the stress and difficulty 
of life, which were more insistent for them than they now 
seem to us, religion could not be suffered to lose confidence in 
itself. Over and over again the issue must be frankly faced, for 
it is the issue of life or death ; the soul must be reminded, and 
again reminded, that its ultimatum has been delivered ; the final 
decision must be recalled and re-affirmed ; the soul's covenant 
with God must be displayed, and the will of man recommitted 
to its clauses one by one. Such was the deeper intention of 
the ancient creeds. Would any lesser aim have secured their 
survival into an age which has grown beyond them ; or made 
it possible that many good and enlightened men should still 
chant them in a voice of triumph when, by their own confession, 
they can give an unqualified assent to scarcely a single one of 
the propositions they utter ? 



CREDO 491 

Theirs was not the spirit of spurious open-mindedness, so 
luch in fashion nowadays, which worships a note of in- 
terrogation the timidity which dare commit itself to nothing ; 
the half-hearted religion which negotiates for its status and 
proposes a perpetual parley with Doubt, Sin, and Death. 
Such, my friends, are the principal objections which 
Christianity has to encounter at the present day, but I 
Denture to think we need not despair." Retro Satanas ! 
lines have indeed fallen unto us in a highly apologetic 
We apologise for the highest things ; we introduce them 
jntatively often with a veiled implication that their opposites 
almost as good. But if the dogmatism of the Creeds 
bad, this other extreme is infinitely worse. How can the 
rorld fail to despise a religion which is accompanied by a 
irpetual excuse for its own existence? The world knows 
r ell that the thing so offered is not religion at all. What- 
jver comes before man with the airs of a suppliant cannot 
the Spirit of the Absolute Good. It is the devil who is 
5 prince of apologists, and even he is not always fawning for 
5 suffrages of his constituents. The Good, however lowly 
form, does not apologise for itself, nor creep into the world 
ith an abashed countenance and an air of " I hope I don't 
itrude ? " It stands on its rights. 

Is there, then, no need of the Apologist, no service which 
ie can perform ? Most assuredly there is. Does not Faith, 
r en when most confident, demand a base secure within 
Ixperience, and a line of communications kept open in 
[istory ? Nevertheless a time may come, indeed has come, 
r hen the base is so distant and indistinct, and the lines of 
>mmunication so long, numerous, and confused, that their 
taintenance drains the best energies of the host. When these 
conditions arrive, the whole position becomes insecure, Faith 
loses heart, and the Light ceases to invade the darkness. And 
weakness passes into decadence when, in addition, there falls 
upon the Church the task of protecting a huge baggage-train, 
packed with obsolete munitions and a mixed assortment of 



492 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

worldly goods. What ought to be subordinate now becomes 
supreme. The priest drives out the prophet ; religion gives 
no lead to life ; laboured explanation displaces the word of 
command ; the objective is lost sight of ; the front is for- 
gotten ; force is scattered ; loyalty perishes ; demoralisation 
spreads ; the host loses momentum and impact ; strong men 
linger in the rear and quarrel over the spoils of ancient 
victories. The exclusion of Defence from the business of the 
Church is not indeed to be thought of; but let the things 
defended be worth defending, and such as are really assailed. 
Religion conserves nothing that it cannot use, for it is, before 
all else, a creative principle, an active Good, an invasive Ideal. 
The loss of this central conception is the recurrent mis- 
fortune of every organised Church, and much of the theo- 
logical literature of the present time shows little trace of its 
presence. The science of Christian Apologetics has grown to 
enormous dimensions, its convincingness inversely proportional 
to its mass. Sects, even, have arisen which devote no small 
part of the resources at their command to discovering a reason 
why they should exist the characteristic occupation of 
sectarianism all the world over. The literature thus produced, 
whether in defence of doctrine or of denomination, is not 
inspiring though it seems to be popular. Many go to church 
for the purpose of hearing religion defended, and explained, 
and placed on some perilous footing of accommodation with 
alien things in which they really believe. There is a strong 
disposition to meet doubt half-way, discuss the matter as an 
open question, and effect some kind of feeble compromise. 
The Churches have laid themselves out to meet the demand, 
and the weakest of them all are the most apologetic. Mean- 
while, there are devout men to whom the attitude of incessant 
apology is unspeakably repugnant and disheartening. These 
would be greatly helped if suffered now and then to join their 
voices to the great shout of the Church Militant to sing the 
battle-hymn of their Ideal and to go forth to the field 
inspired with its strains. 



[S THERE A COMMON CHRISTIANITY ? 
PROFESSOR J. H. MUIRHEAD. 

a recent article in the HIBBERT JOURNAL l Professor 
jwey has called attention to the fact that the education 
mtroversy has had one unforeseen but most beneficial con- 
[uence. As the " social problem " has led to the spread and 
ic deepening of reflection on the nature and ends of social life, 
the religious problem in schools has had the effect of 
Emulating thought everywhere upon the essential meaning 
>f religion itself. Though it is in England at the present 
loment that controversy is most acute, yet the question at 
ue is one of fundamental interest to the whole Christian 
rorld. In England itself the pause in actual hostilities which 
succeeded the breakdown of the recent negotiations seems 
ivourable to a more serious attempt than has yet been made 
understand the real inwardness of the situation. It is only 
its outward aspect that the controversy is national ; in- 
rardly it is concerned with some of the most vital problems 
ic modern spirit has to solve. 

He must be an obtuse observer or controversialist who 
not felt as the fight went on that the difference goes far 
deeper than he had at first supposed, and who has not made 
some effort on his own account to reduce to their ultimate 
terms the assertions and counter-assertions which each side 
seems to assume as axiomatic. The present paper is an 
attempt to reach a better intellectual understanding of the 
underlying logic of the controversy, and to indicate in the 

1 See HIBBERT JOURNAL, July 1908. 
493 



494 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

light of the result the direction in which, in the judgment of 
the writer, ultimate peace is to be sought. 

We do not need to go far to come upon the fundamental 
point of disagreement. On the one side, which for want 
of a better name we may call the undenominational, the case 
is summed up in the assertion that there is a body of religious 
truth common to all Christian denominations a " fundamental 
Christianity" which may be made the basis of religious in- 
struction in schools without offence to any but extremists. 
It is not denied that special doctrines and forms of ritual have 
their importance, more particularly that there is a deep line 
of cleavage between Catholic (whether Romanist or Anglican) 
and Protestant Christianity. But as peculiar to particular 
creeds these differences, it is held, are less fundamental than 
what is common to all, are easily separable from it, and can 
be postponed or entrusted to the care of other agencies pro- 
vided by the particular denominations for this purpose. When 
challenged to give examples of these basal propositions the 
undenominationalist names the Fatherhood of God, the 
brotherhood of man, and the large number of ethical and 
religious truths that flow from them and which may be 
gathered from the more spiritual parts of Scripture, more 
particularly from the splendid grouping in the " Sermon on 
the Mount." With these as our armoury is it not, he asks, 
the teaching of the merest common sense to close up our 
ranks in face of the common enemy, which is not this or that 
form of Christianity, not even this or that form of religion, 
but the spirit that denies in general the spirit of irreligion ? 

The plea, it must be admitted, is attractive. It appeals at 
once to the man in the street and to some of the most dis- 
tinguished of our men of science. 1 But it is no sooner 
announced than it is met by a flat rejection on the part, 
not only of extremists, but of leaders as representative of 
modern religious opinion as their opponents. It is true, they 
say, that you may name doctrines which in one form or 

1 See particularly Sir Oliver Lodge's Man and the Universe. 



IS THERE A COMMON CHRISTIANITY? 495 

another are held by all Christian denominations, perhaps even 
by all Western religions, but the essence of religious belief 
is just the particular form in which they are held, the specific 
interpretation that is given to them in the Church's creed. 
It is this, and not any general and abstract statement, about 
which people really care ; and rightly, because it is this alone 
that gives the belief its power. It is these definite beliefs 
that are the helmet of faith and the sword of the spirit, in 
the power of which the Christian is called upon to advance. 
There is nothing to gain but everything to lose by ignoring 
the particular quality and temper of your weapons and in 
joining forces with allies who trust to pasteboard shields and 
swords of lath. 

There is indeed, it must be admitted, something at first 
ht paradoxical about this contention. Is it only, we ask, 
the things in which men differ that stir their enthusiasm? 
Is it not as though physicists or biologists were to maintain 
that there is no common body of physical knowledge which 
could be made the subject of school instruction without 
bringing in outlying controversies as to the ultimate con- 
stitution of matter or the heredity of habit, and as though 
no education in science could be begun until we had carefully 
segregated children into groups according as their parents 
preferred Kelvin to Rutherford or Spencer to Weismann? 
Yet, as the course of the controversy has abundantly shown, 
the argument is not so easily set aside. 

" You appeal, on the ground of a common Christianity to 
which it is possible for the teacher to confine himself. But 
what," the denominationalist asks, " does this in reality amount 
to ? You instance the Fatherhood of God ; but, passing over 
the vagueness of the metaphor, what kind of God is He ? 
through what channels does He communicate with us? in 
what works has He manifested Himself ? by what authority do 
you speak of Him ? The whole content and spirit of your 
teaching will depend on the answers you give to these 
questions, and such answers are what we mean by religious 



496 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

doctrines. You may seek to evade the difficulty, as is often 
done by the hard-pressed undenominationalist, by denying that 
belief has anything to do with true religion. And you may 
quote Scripture to prove that it consists in doing justice and 
loving mercy, and not in any formulated doctrine. But this 
is merely to remove the difficulty a step further back. In 
what spirit ? in whose name ? by what means is justice to be 
done and mercy shown ? You cannot evade doctrine and 
belief without reducing life to a mere play of personal feeling 
and sentiment, about which there is nothing to teach because 
nothing to be known in common." 

In attempting a solution of the antinomy here indicated we 
must start, I believe, from the admission of the substantial 
truth of the denominationalist's contention. In the sense in 
which the existence of common truths is usually urged, we must 
admit that the claim is illusory. The so-called common truths 
turn out on closer examination to be no more than abstract 
formulae concealing all sorts of specific differences, according 
to the setting they have in the general system of individual or 
corporate beliefs. Each of them takes on a colour of its own 
from its particular environment. Even though it were more 
possible than it is to separate off doctrines that resist the 
action of this transforming medium, they would be found to 
constitute not the most but the least important elements of 
religious faith the mere abstract being of God, the historical 
existence of Jesus of Bethlehem, or at least of Nazareth, the 
fact of social sympathy and of fellow-feeling between the 
members of the human race the commonplaces rather than 
the common bond of believers in Christianity. Yet with this 
admission we seem to be back at the paradox from which we 
started, and this is even more serious than at first appeared. 
For if second thought is sufficient to undermine the theory of 
a common Christianity, third thought seems to show that 
it is impossible to stop here, and that the argument is 
applicable, mutatis mutandis, to parties and even to members of 



IS THERE A COMMON CHRISTIANITY? 497 

the several communities themselves. If it is impossible to 
discover a common Christianity in which separate Churches 
may unite, is it not equally impossible to find a common 
Anglicanism or Wesleyanism? This at any rate must be 
clear, that just in proportion as a group or an individual 
believer seeks to understand and appropriate his creed, to 
transform it from a dead aggregate of propositions into a living 
system of intelligently held beliefs, will each of its articles 
assume a specific meaning which by the very fact will 
differentiate it from the same article as it is held by another. 
But an argument which proves too much is an argument 
which suggests a revision of the premises on which it is 
founded. In the present case it forces us to ask a question 
which has been singularly neglected in the present controversy, 
yet is clearly vital to the issue. The dispute hinges on the 
assertion and denial of common elements in Christian creeds, 
yet no serious attempt has been made by either side to dis- 
cover what is meant by a common element. An elementary 
analysis will show the ambiguity of the term. 

Two senses lie upon the surface. I look along the tiled 
garden path from the window where I sit. Each of the bricks 
is different, yet they all have common features, the same 
shape, size, colour, etc. On the other hand, I look at the row 
of apple trees by the hedge. Where is the community of the 
parts ? Each shape, each angle and curve, each dimension 

different. Yet it is a row of apple trees. Each is stamped 
the form of a common life. Somehow, in spite of the 
erence, there is community. More than that: instead of 

ing shallower than in the case of the bricks, the community 
is deeper and more all-pervading. What is the reason of this 
difference ? It is that in the one case we have mere common 
elements, which we can obtain by abstracting our minds from 
the dissimilarities, the kind of community which my luggage 
has in virtue of its labels ; in the other we have a life or 
organic principle permeating the whole being of the tree, and, 

according to the differences of function and environment, 
VOL. VII. No. 3. 32 




498 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



expressing itself in differences of form, size, texture, etc. It 
is this that makes it difficult to fix on common elements, yet 
at the same time makes the community that there is the wider 
and the more significant. I might extend my illustrations 
from plant to animal, and thence to human life, and the higher 
I went in the scale of organism the more difficult would I 
find it to fix on important elements that could be obtained by 
the simple process of abstraction, but this would not mean 
that I was leaving community behind, but that it is a com- 
munity of a subtler, more profoundly operative kind a 
community of principle or substance, comparable rather to 
that of the soul in its relation to the body, the spirit to the 
letter, than to a common bodily and imageable feature. 

In dealing with doctrines and beliefs it is of the first 
importance to recognise that herein they resemble living 
things. They are no mere aggregates of propositions mechani- 
cally combined, but ^organic structures whose elements have 
been moulded to the form of the mind or minds of whose 
substance they partake. Hence it is that any particular 
theory seems to differ root and branch and fruit from any 
other in the same subject. Yet, more closely looked at, we 
can see that the separate theories reveal a large basis of 
agreement. 1 The point to notice is that the agreements are 
not to be reached by any facile process of merely leaving out 
differences, but by penetrating for ourselves to the truth of 
the subject, and endeavouring to see the why and wherefore 
of the different forms that theory has taken. Underlying all 
there are common acknowledgments, common principles of 
interpretation, a common spirit. But this community is not 
something that can be definitely formulated as common articles. 

And what is true of theory in general is true of those 
theories which we call religious creeds. A religious creed is 
the attempt to formulate the relation in which a man stands to 
the universe around him, the sort of man which that universe 
calls on him to be, the steps it is necessary to take in passing 

1 See Bosanquet's Logic, ii., on Hypothesis. 



IS THERE A COMMON CHRISTIANITY? 499 

from what he is to what he might be, from the natural or self- 
pleasing to the spiritual or God-pleasing, the appointed means 
for that transition. As the creed is thus concerned with the 
deepest and most vital things, it is not surprising that it should 
contain more vital energy than other forms of belief, or that it 
should show itself more like the living organism to which we 
have compared it, developing like an organism through ant- 
agonism and affinity to elements in its environment, forming 
itself into an individual system in which the elements both 
positive and negative are moulded into a form they have for 
itself alone and which it cannot be said in any proper sense 
to share with another. The differences that thus emerge are 
notorious ; the exclusiveness with which creeds are held has 
passed into a proverb in the odium theologicum. But if our 
analogy holds true, the agreements may be expected to be 
proportionately wide and profound, seeing that it is the same 
human spirit that expresses itself in all, and these agreements 
must go as deep as the underlying community of human souls. 
The sense of such underlying unity may be the result of the 
touch of genius, as in a St Francis, or again of the touch of 
nature, as in the face of a common peril, both of which have 
the power of making the whole world kin. But it may also 
; perhaps normally is the result of labour of the mind 
>nsciously directed to the search for religious truth. To 
such a mind deep answers to deep ; religions, if they have no 
common elements, are seen to have correspondences which 
lave their root in a common principle. 

More than any other faith Christianity from the outset has 
dmed to have a creed. More than any other, believers hold, 
has had a history. Like the living thing which it is, it has 
>wn and developed, here by opposing and rejecting, there by 
dmilating materials that have come to it from without. 
Attempts, indeed, are always being made to treat the doctrinal 
>mplexities with which Christian theology deals as accretions 
which obscure its real nature, and to direct us back to some 
itral common core, which we are to reach by stripping off 



500 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

its artificial wrappings. But the sounder view is that which 
Newman was the first to render popular in his Development of 
Doctrine. What we are coming to see is what Newman failed 
to see, that in this process, along with the movement towards 
unity and coherence of part with part, there has also been a 
movement of differentiation amounting to segmentation, which 
has made its development resemble rather that of a species or 
group than an individual organism. More particularly there 
were the great schisms into Eastern and Western, and more 
recently into Northern and Southern, Christianity. To some 
these seem to have had a shattering effect. They ought 
rather to be regarded as signs of the vigour of its life, and an 
underlying consciousness that elements quite vital to it as a 
whole were imperfectly recognised in the accepted synthesis, 
and that it was better that these elements should be asserted 
and developed in partial isolation than that they should not be 
asserted at all. If this is so we may expect that just where 
this living " reforming " spirit has been most active, as in 
England, Scotland, Germany, and America, the time will 
soonest come when the underlying unity will begin to re- 
assert itself, first in the poets and men of genius, then in the 
professional thinkers, lastly in the minds of the great mass of 
the people who are in touch with the sterner realities of life 
and whom this touch of nature has made theologically kin. 
This probably is actually taking place at the present time, 
and is the meaning of the claim put forward on behalf of the 
coming generation. If there is such a unity of spirit in 
Christian creeds and Churches, it is surely not less in the 
interest of the nation than of the denominations themselves 
that children should be brought up in it. 

I have tried to show what this common element is not. 
But, having gone so far, I can hardly shirk the challenge to try 
to indicate what it is. 1 

1 This is all the more necessary in view of attempts like that recently made 
by Mr Chesterton, in his brilliant book on Orthodoxy, to prove that there is no 
root of unity in religions at all. We are told, he says, that creeds " agree in 



IS THERE A COMMON CHRISTIANITY? 501 

Perhaps the form to which the question has been reduced 
makes the attempt less presumptuous than it appears. It 
suggests that while it is illegitimate to seek for the common 
root, the " grain of mustard seed," or the " leaven " of Christianity 
in any common articles in the creeds of the several Churches, 
it is not illegitimate to look for it in a common principle, a 
common attitude to the facts of inner and outer experience, a 
common sense of the relative values of things. Religion itself 
has recently been defined as the endeavour to preserve and 
perpetuate all that is of greatest worth in human life. But 
the great religions of the world have differed just in the things 
i they have selected to endow with worthship. One of the 
most striking results of the recent expansion of our outlook 
over the different ways in which religious consciousness has 
expressed itself is that we are coming to realise what in par- 
ticular it is, what the particular scale of values is, for which 
Christianity stands. I select only those features in which it 
contrasts most strikingly with other creeds. (1) With all the 
higher forms of religion, both of East and West, Christianity 
is founded on a belief in an underlying unity in the world. It 
is a form of Monism. Nature and human life are unities in 
themselves and in relation to each other. But it differs from 
Buddhism and generally from the religious consciousness of 
the East in seeking for this unity in life itself and not in with- 
drawal from it. In this sense it is the religion of the outward. 
The eyes of its saints and prophets, as Mr Chesterton puts it, 
are not closed in drowsy indifference, but open and alert to the 
world. Its ideal is fulness of knowledge, fulness of life. To 
Christianity there is nothing common or unclean, for in all 
things may be seen the expression and the symbol of the In- 
visible. (2) Like all the higher forms of religion, Christianity 
believes in some form of spiritual transformation or conver- 

meaning but differ in machinery. It is exactly the opposite. They agree in 
the mode of teaching ; what they differ about is the thing to be taught." He 
does not see that the same argument would apply to the Christian Churches 
themselves. In that case what becomes of " orthodoxy " ? 



502 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

sion as a necessary condition of entry into life in the fullest 
sense. In order to live in the whole we must cease to live in 
the part, to realise the eternal we must cease to idealise the 
temporal, to enter the service of the spirit we must cease to 
strive for lordship of the world. But Christianity differs from 
the highest of these, even from the noble spiritualism of the 
Greek philosophers, in two respects. It calls for a more com- 
plete renunciation. For Christians no contrast short of that 
between death and life is adequate to express the depth of the 
change. We must die to live. No compromise, no reservation 
is possible. We have to put off the old man in its entirety, to 
be born again. And secondly, this passage to the new life is 
not one which is open only to a select few or dependent on 
external advantages. It is open to all even more open to 
those who, owing to their circumstances, are least prejudiced by 
the world's standards, who feel the least security in its conven- 
tions. (3) With all forms of religion, Christianity recognises 
the limitations of human knowledge. " Who hath known the 
mind of the Lord ? or who hath been His counsellor ? " is a 
note that it has in common with them all. But it differs from 
all forms of agnosticism, whether of the Areopagus or of the 
Royal Society, in its assurance of the truthfulness of our 
standards of value and the continuity of what we know and 
have achieved with what remains to be known and achieved. 

We may express these beliefs as we choose. We may use 
the language of religion and theology and call them the belief 
in God's revelation of Himself in nature and human life, in 
the reality of sin and the need of regeneration, in the intrinsic 
worth and the equality before God of every human soul, in the 
veracity of God's word in the heart and in the mind. Or we 
may dissemble their significance in the language of everyday 
life and call them the belief that life is worth living ; that we 
are not so good as we might be, and that we shall have to be a 
great deal better if we are going to be anything worth speaking 
of at all ; that one man is as good as another, and a man's a 
man for a' that; that our senses don't deceive us, and that 



IS THERE A COMMON CHRISTIANITY? 503 

when knowledge is so scarce it is stupid to distrust what 
knowledge we have. But whatever the form we give them, 
they are the beliefs that all share who have entered by what- 
ever path into the spirit of the Christian world ; they are 
common Christianity. 

May such beliefs be taught in school, and is the teaching 
of them compatible with respect for the tenets of particular 
denominations ? With this question we come back to the 
practical problem with which we started. But the question 
now presents itself in a form that will scarcely permit of two 
answers. For it is precisely such an attitude to the world of 
nature and man, together with the beliefs on which it rests, 
into which children have to be educated if they are to be 
>repared to enter the spirit of Christian civilisation at all. Of 
ie abstract statements we shall have less in the case of the 
rounger children, and perhaps the less the better in the school at 
iy time. But to the teacher these beliefs stand for the spirit 
ich must pervade the whole of the ethical training he seeks 
give, and can be as little left out as the spirit of sincerity 
id truthfulness to fact can be left out of the ordinary subjects 
>f study. Examples on paper are risky, but I venture to illus- 
trate my meaning from a simple but, I think, a crucial instance. 1 
There is no doctrine that has been the subject of bitterer 
>ntroversy than the Eucharist. The doctrine of the Com- 
mnion is the very sign of division ! On none would it be 
lore difficult to obtain any common formula on which 
'hurches and Church parties might agree. But on none would 
it, I believe, be easier to put the child at the point of view 
>m which the Christian doctrine with all its divergencies has 
>rung. Whether the lesson were in physiology or in Scripture, 
child might be shown the continuity of the process whereby 
the material of the bread passes from the grain, which is not 






1 The reader will recognise that the illustration is suggested by R. L. 
Nettleship's brilliant fragment upon "Spirit," Philosophical Lectures and 
Remains, p. 20. 



504 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

yet "bread," to the physical force engendered in the body, 
which is " bread " no longer, thence to the mental and moral 
force that makes the human being into a man and keeps the 
world going. With this would go the thought that the taking 
of it may be a blessing or a curse, according to the use to 
which it is put. Grace before meat or thanks after it may be 
shown, apart from any dogma, to be an aspiration after this 
blessing, a reminder of the place of food in the revivifying of 
our powers. No less near and natural is the illustration from 
the sacrament of the Churches where the bread is taken as the 
symbol of the grace by which, not our physical life alone, but 
the spiritual life and with it the life of fellowship with all those 
who share the same hope, is sustained. By such means and 
in such a spirit I see no reason why the sacredness or sacra- 
ment of the bread should not be taught in all schools, but every 
reason why it should and must. On the other hand, any 
theory of the way in which the divine is present in the human, 
the spiritual in the material granted its appropriateness to the 
mind of the child at all is clearly inappropriate in publicly 
supported schools. At the same time there is nothing in what 
I have said incompatible with instruction elsewhere or after- 
wards in the more specific doctrine. Indeed, it is difficult to 
see with what saving force teaching in any specific doctrine can 
come to those who have not caught some earlier glimpse of 
the idea which alone can give significance to it. 

I pass from this to what seems to me the real difficulty of 
the situation. Granted that there is in this sense a common 
and a teachable Christianity, who, I may be asked, is to teach 
it ? Does it not involve a training of the teacher, first in a 
group of philosophical ideas, and secondly in the way of using 
them in ordinary class-teaching, which there is no attempt 
anywhere to supply ? The criticism touches the core of the 
problem. It means that for any real solution of the religious 
difficulty we must look in the last resort to the training 
colleges. The remarkable movement in the direction of the 
training of Sunday School teachers in method is a recognition 



IS THERE A COMMON CHRISTIANITY? 505 

of this fact. But it is not merely, as the promoters of the 
movement seem to suppose, a question of method. One of 
the first discoveries that they are likely to make is that it is 
impossible here to distinguish method from matter. Still less 
is it a question for Sunday School organisations alone. It 
is a question that concerns all training colleges for teachers, 
whether denominational or undenominational. It is just in 
ignoring this that the great mistake has been. We have 
allowed our attention to be distracted by the popular cries. 
In particular we have treated the problem as one of two 
variables, religious doctrine and the mind of the child. We 
have forgotten that the real centre of the situation, the point 
where these two meet, is the mind of the teacher. It is true 
that this point is touched where the emphasis is laid, as it 
usually is among teachers themselves, on the " personality of 
the teacher" as the leading factor in moral and religious 
teaching. But this commonplace of teachers' meetings is 
insufficient of itself. What requires to be added is that per- 
sonality is not itself a natural endowment, a fixed datum. It 
ly depends on the ideas the teacher has assimilated in the 
mrse of his own education and training. To cast the burden 
his general outlook and prevailing sentiment, which is what 
mean by personality, is merely to shift it from the accidents 
home and church to the systematised method of forming 
personality that we call a school and college career. It is to 
these, and especially to the latter, that we shall have more and 
lore to look for the ideas that are to underlie the religious and 
toral teaching of the future. What is true of training 
)lleges is true of the universities to which many of them are 
ttached. Until the universities charge themselves not only, 
as they are already to a large extent doing, with the task of 
expounding ideas which may form the basis of constructive or 
reconstructive beliefs in the field of religion and ethics, but of 
seeing that teachers in training have easy access to them and 
to instruction in the method of applying them in the class- 
room, I see no prospect of a solution of the present difficulty. 




506 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

I am prepared to be met by the argument that the pro- 
posal is altogether Utopian and without relation to the present 
crisis. More particularly, I shall be told that there is a far 
simpler solution to hand in "secular education." In reply 
to the general objection I admit that there are difficulties 
to be overcome, but to those who are engaged in the actual 
administration of these colleges they will not appear to be so 
serious as to be insurmountable. Already attempts have 
been made in various directions to surmount them. What is 
wanted is no elaborate apparatus of doctrinal and historical 
and biblical instruction all that may be left to the individual 
Churches and denominational colleges to provide but an 
extension of the instruction in mental philosophy and ethics 
that already form a necessary part of the curriculum of all 
teachers in training. It might take the shape of formal 
lectures or it might be made the subject of informal, though 
not necessarily unsystematic, talks. But what I regard as 
essential would be (1) the attempt to convey an Anschauung 
or an attitude of mind towards the great facts of man's ex- 
perience that might have the effect of an Orientirung of the 
student give him his bearings in the world of religious 
doctrine ; (2) the organisation of some actual practice in the 
application of religious ideas, not in written exercises only, 
but in school lessons and as far as possible in the school itself. 
Colleges will differ in their power of fulfilling these conditions 
by reason of the personnel of the staff, but a college would 
be poorly equipped which had not a choice of teachers who 
would be able to give the necessary training. 

What the result of such training on the mind of the 
teacher himself will be, it is indeed difficult to foresee. It is 
likely enough, and is in harmony with the analogy of theoretic 
differences in other departments, that those who thus seek in 
an atmosphere of freedom to put themselves in touch with the 
primary facts of the spiritual world from which all religious 
doctrine starts, and return with the insight thus acquired to 
test the truth of the different creeds in their abstract formu- 



IS THERE A COMMON CHRISTIANITY? 507 

lations, will find much to alter and transpose. In these days 
education has made even the ordinary man critical of religious 
beliefs. As Socrates found the uncriticised moral life one that 
was not worth living, we are coming to recognise that the 
uncriticised religion, or the religion that will not bear 
criticism, is one that is not worth having. But as the Socratic 
criticism came not to destroy but to fulfil, and gave us in the 
sequel the great constructive morality of the Republic and 
the Ethics, the higher criticism of modern times may be 
trusted to bring with it not the impoverishment but the 
enrichment of man's religious faith. I at least have no 
doubt that the truth it is seeking will find witnesses in every 
Church. Those indeed who embrace it may feel that neither 
in Jerusalem nor in Samaria is God to be worshipped, but this 
will be not because He is in neither but because He is in both. 
To the second objection I would put my answer in the 
form of an appeal. There are some secularists to whom I am 
aware it is useless to appeal. They are too deeply identified 
with the spirit of nineteenth-century Positivism to have 
anything to do with a point of view which is founded on 
the recognition of any wider principle of synthesis than 
" Humanity." But besides these " exclusionists " there 
are others, making, I believe, the large majority of those 
who advocate secular education, who occupy a different 
position. Their objection to the present system is not that 
it is religious and Christian in the larger sense, but that it 
identifies religion with a particular interpretation of it, that it 
sees sacredness only in a particular class of symbols, finds 
religious edification only in a particular range of texts, while 
it fails to see them or denies them in others. It is to these I 
would appeal, and I would ask them to consider whether the 
cultivation of the wider outlook which they desire is likely to 
be furthered or hindered by the refusal to give teachers in the 
future either motive or opportunity to concern themselves 
with religion as a factor in human nature or with the great 
things in art and literature in which the religious spirit 



508 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

has expressed itself. Is it desirable ? is it in the long run 
possible ? I think I know something of the mind of the 
teacher in training, both secondary and elementary. My ex- 
perience is that while there are few or none who go forward to 
their work in the spirit of a narrow denominationalism, 
there are just as few who are prepared to accept a post 
which would exclude them from the use of religious ideas 
in the attempt to touch the feelings and train the will 
to finer issues. They feel themselves the inheritors of 
a tradition dating back to the beginnings of Western 
civilisation and not confined to Christian times alone, that it 
is by the skilful use of these ideas that the deepest hold over 
the minds and hearts of children can be secured. Of this 
inheritance they are not likely to permit themselves to be 
deprived, to please either denominational exclusivists or 
puritanical secularists. It is for this reason that I hold with 
Mr Bernard Shaw that secular education, in this country at 
least, is an impossibility. It is quite possible, and now even 
probable, that the nation may be driven to nominal secularism 
as the only way out of a wrangle that has come to be intoler- 
able, to cutting a knot which it sees no way of unravelling. 
But I find it impossible to believe that it will ever consent so 
to limit the freedom of the teacher as to forbid him all resort 
or even reference to the texts and literature of the Christian 
religion. These, no less than Shakespeare and Milton and 
Bunyan (who, of course, are included in them), are a national 
inheritance of which no teacher who realises his trust, or 
whose religious instruction at present counts for anything, 
would consent to be deprived without the strongest protest, 
and of which no English Parliament is likely to seek to 
deprive him. It is the plague of elementary education that 
it is subject to legal acts and definitions. It is all the more 
incumbent on those who are concerned with the living thing 
to look at facts. Under the " secular solution " the Scripture 
lesson will be a thing of the past, but the Scripture ought to 
remain, would remain, and wherever there was a place for 



IS THERE A COMMON CHRISTIANITY? 509 

" talk " (whether under the name of moral instruction or any 
other) this or another breathing the same spirit will be the 
natural text and source of illustration. 

Though, then, it becomes more and more obvious that there 
is no common Christianity which disputants may agree to have 
taught in schools as a non- controversial residuum, yet the air 
is full of hope and of the possibility of settlement on other 
lines. In every Church there is noise of going in the tree- 
tops. The best minds are coming to recognise that religion 
is greater than any of the religions. In its higher, distinctively 
modern and Western form religion rests on the twofold faith 
in the unity and the spirituality of the world. This faith 
takes divers forms in individuals and Churches. But it is the 
same human need and aspiration that embodies itself in all. 
'o catch the common spirit is indeed no easy matter. Yet 
:ight instruction joined with the right moral experience counts 
for much. Such experience and instruction ought not to be 
jyond the reach of those who are preparing for the work of 
ie teacher. It is in the last resort just that knowledge of 
dmself, the knowledge of " what is in man," which it is the 
dm of all truly liberal education to impart. In the whole 
latter a special obligation rests upon the universities. It is 
ie modern university which is largely responsible for the 
situation. It is the free historical research and the free 
philosophical speculation which it has encouraged that has 
made it so difficult to accept the finality of the old formulae. 
On the university rests also the responsibility of showing how 
the situation is to be met, how the old formulae may be 
adapted or new ones created to express the truth as we know 
it. In this work of reconstruction and reinspiration of the 
work of the teachers there is nothing, I believe, that need 
rouse the opposition either of denominationalists or of 
secularists. 

IJ. H. MUIRHEAD. 
UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM. 



CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE 
RELIGIONS. 

JOHN WRIGHT BUCKHAM, D.D., 

Professor of Christian Theology, Pacific Theological Seminary. 

I. 

THE roots of Christianity have never been thoroughly explored. 
Only in recent years, indeed, has Christianity been thought of 
as having roots, or as being a plant, a growth, at all. Rather 
has it been looked upon as a donum Dei, a supernatural deposit, 
a treasury of knowledge and beatitude delivered incomparable 
and complete to mankind. For the better part of two 
millenniums this conception prevailed. Now and again, how- 
ever, the cunning eye of scientific criticism, trained in the 
laws of a universe inconsonant with this assumption, saw 
through its meagreness and caught glimpses of a wider 
relationship and a deeper meaning. The impossibility of a 
completely segregated, independent, and supernatural religion 
has become increasingly evident. Even from the first the 
dependence of Christianity upon Judaism was so clear that 
the two Testaments were incorporated as complementary 
parts of a single revelation. But that left the revelation 
still static, unrelated, isolated. 

It meant the coming of a great change when the discovery 
was made that other Semitic religions, notably the Babylonian, 
disclose ideas, practices, legends strikingly similar to those of 
Israel, suggesting a common origin. Likewise was the assur- 
ance of the older Apologetic disturbed by the accumulating 
testimony of historical scholarship to the large place which 

510 



CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE RELIGIONS 511 

Hellenism has had in the development of Christianity. It 
was not merely an " influence of Greek thought upon 
Christianity," as Edwin Hatch termed it in his Bampton 
Lectures ; it was a mighty current of idea and impulse that 
poured into Christianity from Greek Philosophy and mingled 
its waters with the earlier fount from Sion's hill and the 
fresh pellucid stream from the hillsides of Galilee. " The 
influx of Hellenism, of the Greek spirit, and the union of 
the Gospel with it," says Harnack, " form the greatest fact 
in the history of the Church in the second century ; and when 
the fact was once established as a foundation, it continued 
through the following centuries." 1 Earlier even than this, 
in the Pauline and Johannine theologies, the moulding power 
of the Greek mind had begun to make itself felt in Christianity. 
And who can doubt that the Christianity of to-day, on its 
intellectual side, carries the permanent impress of the Greek 
mind ? It is significant that so many of our church buildings 
are in the form (more or less) of the Greek temple. 

But Judaism and Hellenism are far from exhausting the 

idebtedness of Christianity to other religions. That life-and- 

leath conflict between good and evil the good God and the 
fhteous man pitted against the forces of darkness and false- 

lood which absorbed the soul of the ancient Persians, made 
rer to Christianity, chiefly through the Persian- Jewish contact 
Babylon, its virile sense of powers to be overcome and 
>ngs to be overthrown, and has quickened the Christian 
spirit and moved it to greater earnestness in the battle with 

in. The strength of the Christian belief in a future life and 
the Fravashis, the spirits whose faces alway behold the face 

>f God does it not come in part from that firm-knit faith 
that nerved the souls of the followers of Zarathustra ? 2 

1 What is Christianity ? Second ed., p. 214. 

2 " Before the Exile, the Jewish creed was very dim indeed as to resurrec- 
tion, immortality, forensic judgment, and all we hold most dear. The Irano-Vedic 
lore developed in Iran the first definite form of our ideas as to the future state, 
according to the obvious data in the case." Dr Lawrence H. Mills, Philo, the 
Archemenids, and Israel, p. 208. 



512 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Modern Christianity is characterised by a devoted loyalty 
to the home " the Christian home " we often call it, knowing 
how closely it is associated with that elevation of woman which 
everywhere follows the footsteps of the Evangel. Whence 
did Christianity acquire this devotion to the home ? Hardly 
from the Orient alone. Jesus deeply sanctioned monogamy, 
and enforced the principles upon which alone the home can 
be built ; but it was only with the advent of the Teutonic 
peoples into the family of Christianity, with that sacred fostering 
of the home-life which was their especial virtue, that the home 
came to occupy the place of peculiar honour and sanctity which 
it now holds in our Christian heritage. 

Without attempting a summary of all the contributions, 
religious and ethical, which Christianity has received from 
sources outside its own immediate content, it is becoming 
increasingly clear that, both in origin and in development, it 
has drawn largely from the best religious thought and life of 
the race. The two deepest strata of the religious life of 
humanity, Semitism and Aryanism, have given of their richest 
ores to Christianity. When we say that Jesus was a Jew, and 
that upon the best religious inheritance and instruction of his 
people and age he constructed his faith, we may not forget 
that this heritage of his reached far back of Hebraism, back of 
Jacob and of Abraham, back to that primitive and shadowy 
realm of human origins in which there first sprang up the idea 
that there are gods at all and that a tie of some sort unites the 
individual man to his tribal god and to his tribal brother. Out 
of the Semite the Hebrew, out of the Hebrew the Jew, out of 
the Jew the Christian. And who shall say how much the 
Christian of to-day owes to that savage, remote Semite, 
struggling out of his animalism towards a dawning light within ? 
In the same way, when we say that Hellenism furnished a 
large part of the intellectual conceptions out of which Christian 
theology was formed, we may not justly leave out of account 
the antecedents of Hellenism. For Hellenism did not begin 
complete, any more than Athene sprang full-armed from the 



CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE RELIGIONS 518 

head of Zeus. Far down in the early aspirations and out- 
reachings of the mind of the Aryan race, before its migrations 
from the steppes of Southern Russia, were germinating those 
rational unifying conceptions which the new religion of Jesus 
caught and consecrated to its urgent ends. Out of Aryanism 
Hellenism, out of Hellenism Platonism, out of Platonism 
Alexandrianism, out of Alexandrianism, reaching down to the 
present day, the New Theology. 

Neither royal family of Europe nor self-made man of 
America can deny relationship with the savage man and the 
ancestral ape. Nor can Christianity ignore its kinship with 
religion in its lowest and crudest beginnings. What then ? 
Is it degraded by the relationship, polluted by the superstitious 
crudities of religion's earliest awakening ? Rather does it by 
lis kinship gain touch with total humanity in its upward 
iving, added sense of the greatness of the instinct which out 
such chaos and meanness can produce such harmony and 
race as the water-lily, with its roots in the slime of the lake- 
>ttom, blooms snow-white and fragrant in the summer sun. 

II. 

The study of Comparative Religion is revealing Chris- 
lity in a wholly new light, from the vantage-ground of a 
jh view-point. For the first time we are getting perspective. 
[n two ways the gain is inestimable. Comparison is disclosing 
ie inherent strength and superiority of Christianity as it 
mid appear in no other way. All values are clarified by 
>mparison. The great Kohinoor, placed beside lesser 
liamonds, does not render them worthless, but only thus 
loes its own resplendence appear. When the birds are carol- 
ling their gayest, and suddenly the song of the hermit-thrush 
>es above the roundelay, soulful, wistful, masterful, one per- 
dves to what wealth and height of expression a bird-song can 
attain. It is only when Jesus moves across the field of vision 
where other men have walked, that we know what a man can 
be. Other religions do not lose when placed beside Chris- 
VOL. VII. No. 3. S3 



514 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

tianity, except relatively, but Christianity gains. There is at 
once a clearer understanding, both of them and of itself. The 
presence of the best reveals in the same instant the goodness 
of the good and the supremacy of the best. It was the folly 
of unfaith to hesitate so long to place Christianity upon a 
common base level with other religions, fully, freely, and 
without prejudice. For only as it stands on the same level 
can its true height be seen. The Parliament of Religions, 
though it cost many of us a pang of dismay at the f ime, was 
one of the greatest furtherances of Christianity that the friends 
of true religion ever accomplished. 

The supremacy of Christianity appears by comparison, both 
in what it includes and in what it excludes. All that is 
worthiest and highest in other religions proves by comparison 
to be in Christianity. Is it the reverence of Hebraism, the 
freedom of Hellenism, the moral earnestness of Zoroastrianism, 
the mysticism of Brahmanism, the sacrificial spirit of Buddhism ? 
All are here in Christianity, and here, not in excess of emphasis, 
but in full and balanced harmony. And in much, too, that 
is in other religions and not in Christianity, its supremacy 
may be seen quite as clearly. Angles of distortion, ignoble 
and limiting ideas of God, asceticisms that wrong humanity, 
conceptions of nature and spirit that fetter and retard the 
spirit, how free on the whole from these defects of other 
religions Christianity is. Not that such excrescences have 
not become attached to Christianity and worked serious ill, 
but they do not belong to its spirit and essence. 

We must not, however, suffer this broader outlook upon 
religion as a whole to blind our eyes to the true character of 
Christianity, lest we rob it of its own individuality. The fact 
that Christianity conjoined Hebraism and Hellenism by no 
means reduces it to a mere syncretism. Nor does the fact 
that it has incorporated elements from other religions make 
it an eclecticism. No one who understands Christianity would 
hesitate to say that it is far more than a union of Hebrew and 
Greek elements. Whatever Christianity has taken up it lias 




CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE RELIGIONS 515 

assimilated. This is its secret a marvellous power of assimi- 
lation. With that astonishing alchemy which indicates 
originality of organism, Christianity has made its own, trans- 
formed, renewed whatever it has laid hold upon. Syncretisms 
mbine, eclecticisms choose and construct, but only life 
assimilates. Explain it as you may, there is something in 
Christianity that enabled it to take Hebrew piety and Greek 
thought, and transform, vitalise, adapt each to its own 
nature and ends, so that it goes forth not wearing them as 
garments but incarnating them as life. It is only an in- 
herently puissant and vital faith that can be receptive without 
oming amorphous and demoralised. One has but to 
ntrast Christianity and its power of assimilative receptivity 
ith the later religion of ancient Rome and its heterogeneous 
confusion of incongruous faiths, to recognise that the difference 
is no less than that between life and death. 

When we come to ask for the secret of this assimilative 
power, we find ourselves approaching that problem which has 
proved so fascinating of late : What is the essence of Christi- 
anity, where is the hiding of its power ? It is not difficult, by 
analysing Christianity, as Harnack has done, to discover 
certain potent fundamental truths the fatherhood of God, 
the worth of the soul, the kingdom of God which, at least 
in the emphasis and fervour it gives to them, are distinctively 
and characteristically Christian. But after all, close as these 
truths lie to the heart of Christianity, they are not its inner 
essence. Our New Theology is in great part characterised by 
its showing that Christianity won its way by uniting two great 
truths concerning God which no other religious philosophy has 
harmonised Transcendence and Immanence ; but no one 
would think of finding even in that synthesis, important as it 
is, the essence of the Christian religion. The ethics of Christi- 
anity, too, and even its cult, reflect a simplicity and sincerity 
which help to account for the strong hold which Christianity 
secured and kept over the human mind ; but none of these 
things solve the problem of its essence. To reach that, one 



516 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

must go deeper into that profound and subtle realm that holds 
the hidden springs of all that moves us most personality. 
At the very source and centre of Christianity there glows a 
Person who say what we may of the incompleteness of his 
life-story and the later misconceptions which have obscured 
his true character is the most compelling, transforming Fact 
in human history. The "incomparable significance of this 
personality as a force still working in history," says Harnack 1 
this is the real essence of Christianity. " When God and 
everything that is sacred threaten to disappear in darkness, or 
our doom is pronounced, when the mighty forces of inexorable 
nature seem to overwhelm us and the bounds of good and evil 
to dissolve ; when, weak and weary, we despair of finding God 
at all in this dismal world, it is then that the personality of 
Christ may save us. Here we have a life that was lived 
wholly in the fear of God resolute, unselfish, pure ; here 
there glows and flashes a grandeur, a love which draws us to 
itself." 2 Making the largest possible allowance for idealisation 
in the portrait of Jesus in the gospels, there remains, as a 
necessary basis for it, a personality so strong, so pure, so noble, 
as to leave an indelible impress upon the human mind, which 
" far from fading, rather grows," and gives promise of growing 
till it shall remould humanity into its likeness. " We needs 
must love the highest when we see it," and, loving it, grow 
like it. Only let Jesus Christ be kept before humanity long 
enough and clearly enough, and he will make it over into his 
own image. 3 

But is not Jesus himself also a product of evolution ? 

1 Christianity and History, p. 44. 2 P. 47. 

3 The supremacy of Jesus in the eyes of others than Christians is well 
illustrated in the recent words of an orthodox Hindu to his fellow Hindus : 
" How can we be blind to the greatness, the unrivalled splendour of Jesus 
Christ ? Behind the British Empire and all European Powers lies the single 
great personality the greatest of all known to us of Jesus Christ. He lives 
in Europe and America, in Asia and Africa, as King and Guide and Teacher. 
He lives in our midst. He seeks to revive religion in India. We owe every- 
thing, even this deep yearning towards our own ancient Hinduism, to 
Christianity." J. P. Jones, D.D., India's Problem, p. 357. 



UI< 



hii 

: 



CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE RELIGIONS 517 

Yes, in a sense Jesus certainly was a racial religious product. 

Generations of spiritual culture entered into his individuality. 

He was the consummate flower blooming on the most vigorous 

branch that has put forth from the religious trunk of humanity, 
nd yet that does not explain him wholly ; it does not touch 
he deepest secret of his being. That transcendent Self within 

him which rose above the physical, the temporal, the racial, 

which met and mastered limitation and circumstance, and all 
e slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and turned all into 
lendid victory how shall we account for that ? It cannot be 

accounted for, save as one sees in him another self beside the 

Perely racial man the Second Man from heaven. Not that 
is twofold selfhood is peculiar to Jesus Christ it belongs to 
an as man, but that the eternal Self, which in us is but 
constant and indistinct, in him was so full-orbed and 
supreme that of him, as of no other, the author of the Fourth 

(ospel could write : " And the Word became flesh." 
III. 
The conviction is gaining ground that the hour has struck 
r a universal human religion, that the advance of humanity, 
as a whole, requires that mankind move henceforth under one 
spiritual leadership toward a common goal. Whether this is 
so, is too large a question to be dealt with in this or in any 
single paper. Suffice to say that the present writer shares the 
conviction, together with its appropriate supplement, that 
Christianity is the only religion that can possibly fulfil this 
office. In the light of the study of Comparative Religion, 
it seems an extreme, almost a fanatical aim, to advance 

Phristianity as entitled to supersede all other faiths ; and yet 
is only in the light of such a study that this aim gets its 
ghest encouragement. 
A sufficient reason whether there be others or not for 
pressing Christianity as the only religion fit to become the 
world's religion is that the others to put it squarely, and 
think fairly -- have failed. Buddhism, Confucianism, 






518 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Mohammedanism, with the minor religions, have all failed. 
Not that they have failed in the sense of not holding their own 
outwardly, and even making gains, nor in the sense of not 
containing a great deal of truth, and of accomplishing great 
good but in the sense of not having done for their adherents 
and for humanity what religion ought to do. Not that 
Christianity itself has been absolutely successful; far enough 
from that. But Christianity has, at least, not failed. In spite 
of serious deficiencies and limitations on the part of Christians, 
Christianity has, by comparison, accomplished vastly more 
for human progress than any other of the world's faiths. And 
not only by its works does Christianity make itself known, 
but also, and supremely, by that inherent, essential superiority 
which manifests itself to the eye of unprejudiced and pure 
rational judgment, discerning the things that are excellent. 

In nothing is the true supremacy of the Christian Faith 
better attested than in the inner regeneration which takes 
place in other faiths when Christianity comes into close 
contact with them. This is the most remarkable religious 
fact, perhaps, in the life of the Orient to-day. Buddhism in 
India, in China, and in Japan is undergoing a marked purifica- 
tion in the direction of Christian ideals. Mohammedanism 
itself is becoming leavened with Christian principles to an 
extent but little understood. A Hindu, writing for the 
HIBBERT JOURNAL, has said of Christianity that " it has 
quickened Hinduism with a new, full life, the full fruition of 
which is not yet." 

Why not, then, be content with this result? Why not 
let Christianity do its work indirectly, and depend upon these 
rooted religions to develop into a purity and power sufficient 
for the needs of their own races ? The answer is that these 
religions, in spite of temporary resuscitation, are effete, and 
have not the power of development and adaptation ; they lack 
the moral and spiritual vigour and resources to meet the multi- 
plying demands of advancing humanity. It is the old parable 
of the new wine and the old wine-skins. 



. 

it 
re 

i 

a i 

i 



CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE RELIGIONS 519 

But, granted the need of a universal religion, and that none 
f the Oriental religions is able to meet the need, why should 
it be any individual religion, and not rather a new and greater 
religion made up of the best in all the religions, a religion of 
ligions, a splendid hybrid obtained by what has been termed 
" cross-fertilisation of religions " ? At first blush there is 
a certain fascination in this idea. It has an air of breadth and 
cosmopolitanism that gives it glitter, but it soon fades. It is 
n that a religion which is coldly compounded of various 
ligions, which is everything in general and nothing in 
particular, is no religion at all. To disdain a particular 
ligion in favour of Religion is, as Dr Oman has said, like 
>jecting to being born because one cannot be man, but must 
some particular man. The dream of a polyglot religion is 
aporating. What humanity needs and will demand is a 
ligion with a character of its own and a history of its own, 
religion whose roots have gone down deep into the soil of 
any generations, which has grown up in its own strength and 
ith a sense of its own mission, against which storms have 
aten and suns have burned in vain, and which has stood the 
st of time and transplanting, and changing civilizations. A 
ligion which has thus sufficient might of its own, and yet 
ufficient real breadth and inclusiveness to absorb and conserve 
e truth of other religions, is far better fitted to become the 
igion of mankind than any syncretism or eclecticism. 

IV. 

If Christianity is to be set forward, not simply as a 
lissionary religion, a world- evangel, to summon responsive 
>uls out of other religions unto itself, but rather as a world- 
iligion, a faith for universal humanity, its adherents must 
:rike away all the shackles that bind it, all the cumbersome, 
iventitious non-essentials that have become attached to it, 
ind restore to it the freedom of its qualities, the strength and 
dmplicity of its original unobscured vision and unencumbered 



520 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

power. 1 Too many intelligent men of our own time, who 
have never looked for the essence of Christianity, have identi- 
fied it with dogmas and forms which really have no more to 
do with real Christianity than clothing has to do with the man. 
Whatever any school of Christians may protest as to the 
infidelity of refusing to identify Christianity with a miraculous 
revelation, or an infallible Bible, of predestination, or substitu- 
tionary atonement, or eternal punishment, it is inexcusable for 
an educated person to be blind to the fact that these doctrines 
never were, nor can be, a part of essential Christianity. The 
Christian faith has won its way sometimes with the aid of 
these doctrines, sometimes in spite of them, but never because 
of them. Christianity is a religion of rational freedom, and if 
it has too often been forced to assume the form of religion of 
external authority, the result can only be a transient travesty 
of its true character, certain in time to be cast aside. 

And not only must Christianity be divested of its impedi- 
menta if it is to make conquest of the world, there must be 
restored to it also that genius of adaptation to varied human 
need and environment which enabled it to break the bonds of 
Judaism and respond to the unconscious call of the Gentile 
world. This inexhaustible adaptability, this power of lending 
itself to the deeper needs of varied races without losing its 
own character and individuality, is, I repeat, characteristic of 
Christianity. It can come only from a character so richly 
human that it speaks to the spirit of man as man. No other 
religion has shown a power of adaptation comparable with 
this. Who would have dreamed, at the outset, that Christi- 
anity could ever have found its most congenial home and 
development in the Teutonic race ? Itself Oriental in origin 
and setting, why should it ever have won the Occident, save 
that it belongs to man as man ? so large and human in its 

1 " I must again express my belief that, before Christianity is to gain 
acceptance by the people of India, it must be dissociated from many Western 
ideas and practices which seem to us essential even to its very life." 
Dr J. P. Jones, India s Problem, p. 356. 



CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE RELIGIONS 521 

mrces that nothing else can vie with it in its appeal to a 
liscerning and developing race. 

It is a natural blunder to imagine that we of the West 
lave made Christianity exclusively our own, explored it, 

lausted it, stamped upon it its final form. We carry it 
;k to the Orient as if it were our gift to the peoples that 
rave it birth. In a sense it is, in another sense it is their gift 
to us. Already Christianity is escaping our hands to do its 
>wn great work in its own way. The day of the missionary, 
)ble as it has been and is, already draws toward its close. 
r italised and vitalising Christian churches and civilisations are 
ising with firm but not ungrateful insistence to claim the 
*ight to develop in their own way. Again the herald of the 
'oming One is forced to proclaim with mingled sadness and 
>y, " He must increase, but I must decrease." 

V. 

The result of placing Christianity among the religions, of 
ibjecting it to a free and impartial comparison with other 
liths, is thus twofold. In the first place, its kinship with 
ler religions is proved. The religious development of the 
is one, culminating in Christianity. The Christian faith 
has drawn up into itself and assimilated the highest ideas and 
aspirations of mankind. The life-blood of the religion of 
humanity flows in its veins ; its victories are the fruitage, in 
part, of all the spiritual struggles of the race from its infancy. 
In the second place, such a comparison reveals the inherent 
supremacy of Christianity, its historical uniqueness, the vitalis- 
ing personality of its Christ, its unparalleled power of adapta- 
tion and development, thus laying upon it, with increasing 
jency, the divine obligation of universality. 

JOHN WRIGHT BUCKHAM. 

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. 



ISLAM, THE RELIGION OF COMMON 

SENSE. 

[As it is not usual for the HIBBERT JOURNAL to publish a 
contribution to its pages under an assumed name, I have 
undertaken to stand sponsor for my learned Muslim friend 
" Ibn Ishak." 

He is a native of Northern India, and was educated at the 
Anglo - Muhammadan College, established by the late Sir 
Sayyad Ahmad, Khan Bahadur, K. C.S.I., who has already a 
place in Indian history as the greatest Muslim reformer of 
modern times. He afterwards took a degree in an American 
college, and is a thorough English and Oriental scholar. 

When I state that my friend, Mulla Ahmad, of Tungi, 
who assisted me in the compilation of my Dictionary of Islam, 
was assassinated, it will not be necessary for me to explain 
why the learned Muhammadan reformer, who writes the 
present article, assumes (at my request) a name which should 
conceal his identity. 

The circumstances under which this article was written are 
as follows: When President Jordan's article entitled "The 
Religion of the Sensible American " appeared in the HIBBERT 
JOURNAL, I remembered that, when I had occasion to review, 
for a New York paper, a Life of Mohammed, by the 
Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford, I had found that he 
had used a similar expression (at page 79), where he says 
regarding the prophet of Arabia, " Beneath the mask of the 
enthusiast there was always the soundest and sanest common 
sense." I therefore sent the HIBBERT JOURNAL for last July to 



522 



ISLAM AND COMMON SENSE 523 

my Muslim friend, who happened to be in the Levant at the 
time, and in the vicinity of libraries, and suggested that he 
should send me an article on " Islam, the Religion of 
Common Sense,'' which is a very usual saying of his regarding 
the legislation of Islam, when compared with the more ideal 
legislation of Christianity. I have omitted his criticism of the 
assertion that the prophet wore the " mask " of an enthusiast, 
which roused his indignation, and with a few alterations the 
article appears in its original form. 

For twenty years I spent my life among Muslims, and 
regularly visited their mosques. And in 1875, when I was 
but a tyro in controversy, I stated in the preface to my Notes 
on Muhammadanism that Islam "may be used as a school- 
master (TraiSaywyds) to bring men to Christ." This sentence 
was severely criticised by Christian missionaries at that time, 
but it touched the heart of the individual who now styles 
himself " I bn Ishak." And now, after more than forty years' 
close study of Oriental religious systems, I am more than ever 
convinced that the methods used by Christian missionaries 
for the conversion of Muhammadans need to be revised and 
reformed. The pen is mightier than the sword, and it will be 
when such intelligent Muslims as the Hon. Ameer Ali, Syed, 
C.S.I., and the late Sir Sayyad Ahmad, K.C.S.I., enter the 
field that the Christian-Muslim controversy will assume just 
>portions. At the present time Muslims know very little 
Christianity, and Christians know infinitely less of Islam. 

THOMAS PATRICK HUGHES, B.D., LL.D., 

Fellow of the Punjab Oriental University, 
NEW YORK. Author of A Dictionary of 



IBN ISHAK. 

"In the Name of the Merciful and Compassionate God." 

L.ELYING on the guidance and protection of God (Allah), 
who is the Mighty One (Al-Aziz), the Opener (Al-Fattah) 
of the mind, and the Fashioner (Al-Mussawwir) of the 



524 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

thoughts of men, and Who in the day that He says " Let 
it be, So it is" (Sura 6. 73), this unworthy servant of the 
Creator of mankind will endeavour to demonstrate and 
explain why, in his humble judgment, Islam is THE RE- 
LIGION OF COMMON SENSE the creed and code of ethics for 
the average man. 

In the first place, the controlling idea of Islam is that 
there is one God, and that this one God is the ABSOLUTE 
GOVERNOR OF THE UNIVERSE. 

This stupendous thought is expressed in the Fatihah or 
Opening Sura of the Sacred Kuran, which takes a similar 
place to the Pater Noster of Christians. Occupying the front 
page of every copy of the Holy Book, and recited at the 
commencement of every prayer, it is uttered millions of 
times every day in every part of the globe where the Muslim 
religion is professed. It runs thus : 

" Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds ! 
The Merciful and Compassionate ! 
King of the day of judgment ! 
Thee only do we worship ! 
To Thee only do we cry for help ! 
Guide Thou us on the right path, 
The path of those to whom Thou art gracious, 
Not of those who go astray ! " 

It was this clear and unquestioned recognition of the 
existence and power of God which gave such force to Islam, 
that within the short period of eighty years it had subdued 
not only the whole of Arabia and Syria, but the fairest 
provinces of ancient Persia. It was this mighty proclamation 
of the existence of a Supreme Governor of the universe that 
broke the atheistic rule of the Buddhists in Central Asia, 
and enabled Mahmud of Ghazni to subdue the people of 
Northern India, and extend his dominions to the Ganges. 
It is all-powerful, because it appeals to the head and heart 
of the man of sense. The armies of Islam were like the 
Ironsides of Cromwell: they were "men of religion." 

The Sermon on the Mount spoken by Jesus Christ, 



ISLAM AND COMMON SENSE 525 

who is regarded by Muslims as the Spirit of God (Ruh 
Ullah), is undoubtedly the most beautiful expression of 
Christian Socialism, of which Count Tolstoy seems to be the 
only modern prophet. And THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 
which the Arabian Prophet preached on Arafat to his people, 
only a short time before his death, is one of the most pathetic 
scenes in history. Muhammad, his wives, his slaves, and his 
faithful companions, and more than a hundred thousand of his 
llowers, were assembled on Mount Arafat, on the ninth day 
of the " Hajj," or Pilgrimage, for mid-day prayer a mighty 
host of faithful men and women. Ascending the wooden 
pulpit of three steps known as the Mi?nber, with his staff in 
his hand, the great chieftain opened his lips and said : 

" O ye people ! Hearken unto my words. Listen ! for God alone knows 
if I shall live another year. Your lives and your property are sacred to each 
other, even as this day and this month are sacred unto God. Remember 
that each of you must appear before God to render an account. Ye have 
rights over your wives, and your wives have rights over you. Treat them 
with kindness, for ye have taken them on the security of God, and they have 
been made lawful to you by His Word. And your slaves, your bondsmen and 
your bondswomen, see that ye feed them with such food as ye eat yourselves, 
and that ye clothe them with such stuff as ye clothe yourselves. If they 
commit faults ye must forgive them, for they are the servants of God. If they 
do that which ye feel ye cannot forgive, then part with them, for they must 
not be treated harshly. God is merciful to all. Know ye, O people, that we 
are all brethren. We are one brotherhood in Islam." 

The great concourse of people, we are told, was moved to 
tears, and as the Prophet stepped down from the pulpit the 
people clasped his hands with great affection. It was a good, 
manly, common-sense sermon spoken from the heart, for the 
Prophet of Islam was a man among men. And yet he was 
the threefold founder of a people, an empire, and a religion. 

tThis Prophet of Islam stands before us now, after the 
pse of twelve centuries, as AN OPEN BOOK. Volumes have 
been written to prove that Jesus Christ was not a myth, and 
it is so with Gautama the Buddha, and with Zoroaster. But 
there is nothing mythical about Muhammad the son of 
Abdullah, of the tribe of the Kuraish, and of the family of 
ashim. The day and the year of his birth are well 






526 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

authenticated. He never professed to work miracles, but re- 
peatedly assured the people that he was just one of themselves. 
On his death-bed he pleaded for forgiveness both from his 
fellow-men and from his God, just like any other man. And 
in the daily prayers he was careful to insert a petition for his 
own soul. 

We know everything about this man Muhammad. He 
had the quick and hurried step of the man of business. He 
laughed so heartily that he showed his back teeth. He had a 
firm grasp of the hand. Even when he was the ruler of a 
people he visited the sick. He followed the bier of the dead 
when he met it on the road. He spoke words of comfort in 
the house of mourning. He clouted his own boots. He 
mended his own clothes. He milked his goats and waited 
upon himself. Muslims never grow weary of expatiating 
on the human side of Muhammad's character. As Mr 
Stanley Lane-Poole says, " The frank friendship, the daunt- 
less courage, and the hope of the man all tend to melt 
criticism in admiration." Truly he was the prophet of 
common sense. 

THE BOOK (Al-Kitab), as the Holy Kuran is called, 
in its authenticity and genuineness appeals to the sensible 
man. The Book of the Muslim is not troubled with the 
Higher Critic ! It was collated immediately after the 
Prophet's death, by men who had heard it recited, and who 
had had personal intercourse with him. The recension of 
the Kuran which was handed down to us by the Khalifah 
Usman is unaltered. And even Christian writers such as 
the late Sir William Muir admit that there is no book in 
the world which has remained for more than twelve centuries 
with so pure a text. Muhammadans, like other religionists, 
have been divided into sects, and many have been their 
doctrinal disputes ; but they have each and all received the 
same text of their Kuran, and have never questioned its 
authenticity. This fact alone presents a marked contrast to 
the endless controversies among Christian scholars regarding 



ISLAM AND COMMON SENSE 527 

the text of their sacred books. The sensible man must be 
impressed with this fact. 

The TRADITIONAL ACCOUNTS of the sayings of the Prophet, 
known as Al-Ahadis, are frequently appealed to by Muslim 
doctors and historians ; but whilst they are interesting for 
study and research, they do not appeal to the best judgment 
of the scholar. Al-Bokhari, who among the Sunnis is con- 
sidered the most trustworthy collector, tells us that out of 
600,000 traditional sayings of the Prophet he only selected 
7000 as in any sense trustworthy, and there are thousands 
of such compilations amongst both Shiahs and Sunnis. The 
Wahhabis maintain that the Kuran is the only " Hadis," or 
saying, which has come down to us with an undoubted 
" Silsila " or chain. Under any circumstances, the sensible 
Muslim hesitates to accept traditions which in some way or 
other have not the endorsement of the four " rightly directed " 
Imams, Abu Bakr, Omar, Usman, and Ali. 

The native SIMPLICITY OF THE MUSLIM'S CREED commends 
it to the man of common sense : " There is no god but God, 
and Muhammad is the Messenger (Rasul) of God." In thus 
proclaiming himself the " Messenger " of the Almighty, this 
Prophet of the desert seems to have had the broadest possible 
conception of the gift of prophecy. He said that in the 
history of the world there had been as many as three hundred 
special messengers sent by God for the guidance and direction 
of mankind, and that there were as many as one hundred 
and twenty-four thousand persons who had had the gift of 
prophecy. He placed Plato, ^Esop, and Zoroaster among 
prophets and inspired teachers ; and the intelligent Muslim 
does not hesitate to place Shakespeare, Schiller, and Milton 
among the " prophets " in the West, just as he regards Zuhair, 
Nizami, and Jalal ud Deen Rumi among the inspired teachers 
of the East. The West has been unfortunate in its 
"prophets"! The East is the land of Wisdom, and the 
West of Action. We still travel in bullock-carts along the 
rough roads of life's problems ! They in the \Yest rush on 



528 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

in express trains, which are not conducive to reflection ! The 
Oriental world receives much from the Occident, but the 
East has often something to give back to the West. At 
least the sensible man thinks so. 

There is nothing in the wide world of religious observance 
so impressive as THE CRY OF THE MUAZZAN, when, in the 
stillness of the early morn, before sunrise, he calls the people 
to prayer : " God is great ! I testify that there is no god 
but God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God ! 
Come to prayer ! Come to salvation ! Prayer is better 
than sleep ! " 

Not long ago a member of the British Parliament wanted 
to put the clock on an hour or so to get people out of 
bed. This " Common- Sense Prophet of the Arabian Desert " 
anticipated the honourable gentleman by many centuries. 
He still turns his people out of bed before the first streak of 
the morning sun ! 

THE DAILY PRAYER OF THE MUSLIM has the inspiration 
of common sense. There is nothing equal to it in the whole 
compass of liturgical compilation whether among Jews, 
Christians, Buddhists, Tauists, Majusis, or Sikhs. The 
" Sulat " (Persian " Namaz ") or liturgical prayers are re- 
markable for their simplicity and their fervid appeal to the 
Governor of the world. Travellers in Muslim lands are 
always impressed at the sight of a vast congregation prostrate 
in prayer under the open canopy of heaven, as the Imam, or 
Leader, raises the cry, " Allaho Akbar ! " (God is Great !). 

But the term " Sulat," or, in Persian, " Namax," is confined 
exclusively to the liturgical form of prayer which too often 
gives the Western traveller the impression that with the 
Muslim prayer is simply a mechanical act. But Islam is 
pre-eminently a religion of prayer, which is expressed by the 
Arabic "dua," and is defined as the uplifting of the soul to 
the Creator in every time of need or extremity. The litur- 
gical form is said five times a day, or even eight, but supplica- 
tions to God are made at all times. I take the liberty of 



ISLAM AND COMMON SENSE 529 

extracting a beautiful prayer from The Spirit of Islam, 
compiled by one of the most enlightened Muslims of the 
present time, the Hon. Ameer Ali, Syed, M.A., C.I.E., 
formerly judge of the High Court in Calcutta. It runs 
thus : " O Lord, I supplicate Thee for firmness in faith and 
direction towards rectitude, and to assist me in being grateful 
to Thee, and in adoring Thee in every good way ; and I suppli- 
cate Thee for an innocent heart, which shall not incline to 
wickedness ; and I supplicate Thee for a true tongue, and for 
that virtue which Thou knowest (I need). And I pray Thee 
to defend me from that vice which Thou knowest (I am liable 
to), and for forgiveness of those faults which Thou knowest 
(beset me). O, my Defender! Assist me in remembering 
Thee, and in being grateful to Thee with my whole strength. 
O Lord ! I have injured my own soul, and no one can pardon 
the faults of Thy servants but Thou alone. Forgive me out 
of Thy loving kindness, and have mercy upon me, for verily 

ou art the forgiver of offences and the bestower of blessings 

Thy servants. Amen." 

It is unfortunate that Mussalmans still insist upon having 
e public prayers and the Friday sermon said in the Arabic 

gue. In this they have copied Roman Catholic Christians. 

t to the COMMON-SENSE MUSLIM it would seem to be 
absolutely necessary that the people should say their prayers 
in a language which they understand, and that they should 
sermons which are intelligible to the ordinary mind. 

ere is no doubt that this was a great source of strength in 

Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. 

" CLEANLINESS is NEXT TO GODLINESS " is an old English 

verb. And yet there are still the " Great Unwashed " in 
London. There are none in Mecca! The Prophet of the 
Arabian desert enforced cleanliness among the wild Arabs by 
making it a divine institution. Every Muslim, before he 
takes his place in the congregation for prayer, and even before 
he prays in private, must perform ablutions, and very minute 

are the instructions as expressed in the Holy Kuran. 

VOL. VIL No, 3, 34* 




530 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Priestcraft has been a bane of civilisation. There is NO 
PRIESTHOOD IN ISLAM. The " Imam," or Leader, of prayers 
has no delegated authority. He is merely the most suitable 
person in the congregation to lead prayers. In fact, the 
intelligent Muslim finds no Caliph (Khalifah) in Islam. The 
word is only used twice in the Kuran once for Adam, and 
once for David. It is not used by the Persians. Imam ul 
Mominin is the correct title ; because Islam is a commonwealth, 
and the Imam, or Leader, is chosen by the people. 

THE OTTOMAN CALIPH is an excrescence and an intrusion 
in Islam. When Halaku the Turk captured Baghdad and 
slew the Imam, he did it as the enemy of the duly constituted 
authority. And when one of his successors captured Con- 
stantinople and slew the Christian Emperor at the gate of the 
city, and then sprang on the Christian altar in San Sophia 
and recited the Muslim creed, he violated the most sacred and 
cherished traditions of the religion of the Prophet. For, when 
Omar entered Jerusalem he was received by the Christian 
Patriarch at the gateway, and every protection was given to 
the conquered. When Khalid, " the Sword of Islam," entered 
Damascus he allowed the Christians and the Muslims to pray 
in the same church. When Saladin (Salah ud Deen) re- 
captured Jerusalem in the year 1187 he released all prisoners, 
and supplied them with food. No woman was insulted. No 
child was hurt. No person was slain. And the standing 
shame of it is, that in defiance of the feelings of " orthodox " 
Muslims this Turkish monstrosity is kept on the Bosphorus 
by French and English bayonets. Withdraw this support 
and Islam would re-establish itself at Baghdad, and revive 
the noble traditions of the reigns of Abdur Rasheed and 
Al-Manun. 

The seventy-five millions of Muslims in India recite the 
Khutbah on Fridays, not in the name of the Turk, but in that 
of "The Ruler of the Age," in which every loyal Muslim 
remembers His Most Gracious Majesty the Emperor of India, 
whom we designate a " Prophet of Peace/' The Muham- 



ISLAM AND COMMON SENSE 531 

madans of India are the most loyal subjects of the British 
Crown. 

THE ETHICAL CODE of Islam is clear and definite. There 
is no splitting of hairs over questions of right and wrong. As 
David said, " The commandments of God are exceeding broad." 
The Prophet of Arabia was an intensely human servant of 
God, and he gave his people a system which would adapt itself 
to every grade of human society and every form of civilisation. 
It would be impossible for the Irish poet, Thomas Moore, to 
have written of Islam as he did of Christianity : 

" I find the doctors and the sages 
Have differed in all climes and ages, 
And two in fifty scarce agree 
On what is pure morality." 

The <fc pure morality " of the Muhammadan religion is within 
the reach of the average man. But it is not so with 
Christianity. In the HIBBERT JOURNAL there is a notice of 
Bampton Lectures at Oxford which deal with " The Apparent 
Failure of Christianity as a General Rule of Life and Conduct." 
The Christianity of the present day is the perplexing outcome 
of ages of contention, and consequently it fails as a general 
rule of life and conduct. Some years ago, when a learned 
journalist was asked if he did not think Christianity had 
failed, he replied, "No, sir. It has never been tried." You 
cannot say this of Islam, because it suits the necessities of 
all classes. Protestant missions failed in Madagascar where 
Islam would have succeeded. In Central Africa whole tribes 
are almost immediately brought under its influence. In India 
the number of converts from Hinduism to Islam is very great 
every year. The Muslim does not consider it wrong to offer 
rldly inducements to a new convert, because as a man of 

mmon sense he understands that he must take care of the 
's body as well as his soul. 
THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA often excites the ridicule of 

e critic. To the devout Muslim this Hajj is one of the 
pillars of the faith. The Kaaba, " The Mystic Shrine," with 




532 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

its empty walls, proclaims the extinction of idolatry and the 
worship of the true God. The Black Stone, as the centre to 
which every Muslim prostrates, is the emblem of a common 
brotherhood. Every prostration, every ceremony has its 
mystic meaning, and the heart of the pilgrim burns with 
devotion to his Maker as he presses on singing the 
"Lubaikah!" "I stand up for Thy Service, O God!" It 
is the sacrament, the masonic rite of Islam. The pilgrimage 
made such an impression on the mind of the distinguished 
Swiss traveller, John Ludwig Burckhardt, that he embraced 
Islam, and his grave in the Muslim burial-ground at Cairo is 
visited by travellers. He died in the faith, at an early age, 
October 15th, 1817. 

The Firdous, or PARADISE OF ISLAM, is regarded as immoral 
by its opponents. The Prophet of Arabia did not begin his 
divine mission by preaching Islam to a nation of eunuchs, 
but to a community sunk in the very depths of licentiousness. 
These men had already begun to feel the social restraints of 
the Prophet's moral code, and it became expedient to present 
to them the glories of immortality in a language which they 
would comprehend. The delights of the promised Paradise 
were figurative, even as the Song of Solomon is figurative, 
and in the same strain as the verses of the old Arabic poets. 
When the Prophet told them that a man in Paradise would 
recline on seventy silk cushions, no one thought of taking him 
literally. " I take no pleasure in women," exclaimed a Bedwin 
of the desert. " My delight is in horses ! " The Prophet replied, 
" If you get to Paradise you will have a ruby horse with two 
wings, and you will mount him, and he will carry you where- 
ever you wish." " But my delight is in land ! " exclaimed 
another. " In Paradise," replied the Prophet, " you will sow 
seed, and in the twinkling of the eye it will grow up and you 
will reap it, and it will stand in sheaves like mountains ! " 
Thomas Carlyle says that it is very evident that Muhammad 
presented his Paradise in figurative language, just as John the 
Divine did in the Book of Revelation. 



ISLAM AND COMMON SENSE 533 

The Prophet of Islam taught THE EVOLUTION OF THE 
SPECIES. When, in the year 1859, Professor Darwin put 
forth his great work, The Origin of the Species by means of 
Natural Selection, it fell like a bomb-shell into the midst of 
" orthodox " Christianity. But it is an old truth in Islam, 
dating from its earliest age. It is taught in the Masnavi of 
Jalal ud Deen Rumi, who died A.H. 672 a work con- 
sidered by intelligent Muslims as the result of an inspiration 
only inferior to that of the Kuran. He says that, dying from 
the inorganic, we develop into the vegetable world. Then, 
dying in the vegetable kingdom, we rise to the animal ; dying 
as animals, we rise higher in the species and become human, 
and then on to the divine life. This is the belief of all Muslim 
mystics, and it is founded on the teaching of the Holy Kuran. 
In Sura 6. 8 we read : " No kind of beast is there on the earth, 
nor fowl that flieth with wings, but is a community like your- 
selves." It was this conception of the animal kingdom that 
made Muhammad so kind to animals. And the lady Ayeshah 
relates that on one occasion the Prophet's pet cat went asleep 
on the loose sleeve of his blouse, and rather than disturb pussy's 
restful slumbers he cut off the sleeve. There are many similar 

ranees of his kindness to animals related in the traditions. 
FASTING was specially commended by the Prophet. There 
are at least seven or eight special times of fasting instituted in 
Islam, but the pre-eminent season of abstinence is the month 
of Ramazan, when a severe fast from sunrise to sunset is 
enjoined to " burn away " (as the word implies) the sins of the 
people. It was a sensible arrangement whereby a people busily 
engaged in the vocations of life, or even in war, should be 
compelled to call a halt. This month is called the " Shield " 
of Islam, and it is observed by even the careless and irreligious. 
It is one of the many institutions whereby Islam became any- 
thing but a religion of ease or luxury. 

THE MINISTRATION OF ANGELS, in these days of modern 
spiritualism, is one of the common-sense institutions of the 
Muslim's creed. In the Kuran it is written: "The angels 



534 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

celebrate the praise of their Lord, and ask for forgiveness for 
all the dwellers upon earth " (Sura 3. 130). They watch over 
the faithful night and day. They pass to and fro along the 
lines of the congregation in prayer. They receive the soul at 
the moment of death. They take their places in front of the 
bier as it passes to the grave. And they descend into the 
grave with the departed and say to the true Muslim, 
" Sleep on, O child of the faithful, until the resurrection 
of the just." 

The ancient Arabs in their time of ignorance called the 
angels the " Daughters of God," and in the sixteenth Sura of 
the Kuran there is a very beautiful poetic allusion to the 
destruction of female infants, whom he calls " the Daughters 
of God." The beauty of this portion of the Sacred Book, 
like many other portions, can only be seen in the original 
Arabic. 

THE ABSOLUTE DECREE (Al-Kadar), incorrectly rendered 
" Predestination," is an article of faith. The subject is fully 
discussed in the works of Averoes, and is a matter of endless 
contention between the two sects of Islam known as the 
Asharians and the Mutazilites. The whole question is beyond 
the ken of the average man ; but the great English " prophet " 
(Arabic, Nabi] of modern times, Alfred Tennyson, seems to 
clear up matters just a little when he writes : 

" Oh ! yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; 

That nothing walks with aimless feet : 
That not one life shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 

When God hath made the pile complete." 

THE POLYGAMY OF ISLAM is considered immoral by Chris- 
tian writers, and it always seems to excite the prurient curiosity 
of the Western traveller. No sensible Muslim regards it as an 
immoral feature in Islam. Nay, more, he is fully convinced 



ISLAM AND COMMON SENSE 535 

that Jesus Christ never forbade it. " They twain shall be one 
flesh " (Matthew's Gospel, xix. 5) means precisely the same 
as " They twain are of one soul " in the Holy Kuran (Sura 
4. 1 ). Its meaning is evident to any sensible person. But when 
Martin Luther, of pious memory, and John Milton, the 
Puritan poet, advocate both polygamy and divorce it does not 
seem necessary that the Muslim should defend his Prophet 
when he endorsed both these institutions, which had the Divine 
sanction of the Almighty in the time of Moses. The restric- 
tions of Islam put Western civilisation to shame. Not ten per 
cent, of the seventy-five millions of Muslims in India are 
polygamists, and divorce is not nearly as common among Mus- 
lims as it is in America at the present time. The unlimited 
concubinage (in which the woman has no rights at all) as it 
exists in the large cities of Protestant countries is infinitely 
more immoral than the polygamy of Islam. The dower rights 
of the Muslim woman are a great protection. Besides 
this, divorce is held to be a very disgraceful thing, and 
was condemned by the Prophet. Sensible Muslims who 
have travelled in Europe and America believe that a 
restricted polygamy must eventually be introduced into 
Christian lands. 

The sensible Muslim holds that in order to keep a com- 
munity together in the ways of justice and purity, secular 
education must always be given side by side with RELIGIOUS 
EDUCATION, and he is not surprised that in both Great Britain 
and the United States of America the matter is now being 
very seriously discussed, because crime and immorality are 
undoubtedly on the increase among the youth of both 
countries. In Islam every mosque is a school where both 
religious and secular education is imparted. Islam has always 
regarded education as the great inspiration and guide of the 
people. It is, of course, a matter of history that the Saracens 
of Baghdad, Cordova, and Grenada were the great patrons of 
learning. Dr Marcus Dods says : " When the din of war died 
down, the voice of the Muses was heard. The same fervour 



536 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

which had made the Saracen arms irresistible was spent in the 
acquirement of knowledge." l 

Islam is A RELIGION TO LIVE by. It is never thrust into 
a corner, but in the national, commercial, and domestic life 
of the individual it takes a first and paramount place. It 
undertakes to guide a man from the cradle to the grave. As 
soon as the child is born the midwife takes him to the waiting 
assembly, and some learned person shouts the call to prayer 
(Azan) into his ears. Then on the seventh day the child is 
named. As soon as he can talk he is taught the " Bismillah," 
or the formula, " In the Name of the Merciful and Gracious 
God." Then, although the rite is not enjoined in the Kuran, 
he is circumcised. As soon as he can walk he is sent to school. 
And the question of religious education is not a matter of 
discussion. The child has an immortal soul which must be 
fed, and he is taught to recite the Holy Kuran, and is 
instructed in the necessary elements of faith and practice. 
Then, as he goes out into the world of action he says his 
prayers five times a day, beginning before sunrise and closing 
as he retires to rest. " Marriage," said the Prophet, " perfects 
a man's religion," and so the young man has a suitable wife 
selected for him, and the contract is honoured with the 
sanctions of religion. When the Angel of Death claims his 
soul, he is fortified with religious consolations ; and when his 
body is buried in the earth it is in the hope of a happy 
resurrection. There is no endless hell in Islam. The sensible 
Muslim does not stay to discuss religion; he simply takes 
what God has provided for him in the BOOK as the Divine 
message to the people. 

SLAVERY IN ISLAM, when compared with the slavery in 
America in Puritan times, is a common-sense and exceedingly 
benignant institution. Traffic in human beings is strictly 
forbidden, and only captives taken in war can be enslaved. 

1 There is a very complete and yet concise account of Arabic literature, 
in German, French, and English, by Professor Clement Huart. The works of 
this eminent scholar are well known to Oriental scholars. 



ISLAM AND COMMON SENSE 537 

The emancipation of a slave was declared by the Prophet to 
be one of the greatest acts of piety. A bondswoman bearing 
a child to her master becomes ipso facto free, and a lawful 
wife. The slave is part of the family, and entitled to the care 
and protection of the master. 

I SUICIDE was as common among the ancient Arabs as it is 
Germany and America at the present day. But it was 
(pressed by Islam. The belief that every human soul must 
der an account to God inspires the Muslim with a sense of 
ponsibility which regards self-murder as a horrible crime. 
A. Muslim will give his life willingly on "the Road to 
God," as a war for the extension of Islam is called ; but 
he will not take his own life, because it is a trust from 
the Creator. 

The stern prohibition of all INTOXICATING LIQUORS among 
the followers of the Prophet was a very sensible arrangement. 
Drunkenness may exist among the princes and nobles of 
Muslim countries, but it is unknown among the common 
people, and Muhammadan lands are thus saved from the 

Jadation of many Christian countries. 
FILIAL DEVOTION is a marked feature in Muhammadan 
itries, and the order and dignity of a Muslim home are 
always evident. The injunction in the Holy Kuran on this 
subject is most impressive (Sura 17. 4) : " Thy Lord hath 
decreed that thou shalt be kind to thy parents, whether one 
or both of them reach to be old with thee. Ye must not say 
'fie' to them nor grumble at them, but speak to them a 
generous speech." 

MONOPOLIES AND TRUSTS seem to be " burning questions " 
in the United States of America at the present time. It is 
true that in Muhammad's day there were no Standard Oil 
or Steel Trusts, but there was such a thing as " a corner in 
wheat." And he declared that whosoever creates a monopoly 
is a sinner. The man who keeps back grain forty days in 
order to raise its price will go to hell-fire, for he is both a 
forsaker of God and is forsaken of God. In Muslim works 




538 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of jurisprudence, such as the Hidayah, there are very definite 
instructions on the subject. 

Philosophers from Socrates to Addison, and teachers from 
Jesus Christ to Fenelon, have regarded HUMILITY as the 
greatest of all human virtues. The way in which the common- 
sense enthusiast of Arabia enforced it is very characteristic. 
In the Kuran (31. 16) we read : " O my son ! twist not thy 
cheek proudly, nor walk haughtily. God loves not the arrogant 
boaster. Be moderate and restrained in thy walk and lower thy 
voice. Truly the voice of a donkey is offensive to the ear." 

The income-tax in England and THE SINGLE TAX in the 
United States of America are great questions in national 
economy. But the common-sense legislator of Islam settled 
the matter from the very start. "Zakat," which is one of 
the pillars of Islam, is wrongly rendered " alms " by English 
writers. The word itself means " purification," but in Muslim 
law it stands for a single tax enforced by divine law in the 
Kuran (2. 77). It is levied upon all property, and is spent in 
the propagation of religion, the feeding of the poor, and the 
release of debtors. Consequently there are no " workhouses " 
in Islam, nor have pensions for the aged become necessary. 
Nor is there such a thing as " tainted money," for it is 
" Zakat " " purified " through the tears of the widow and 
orphan. This is a very notable institution in a properly 
governed state. 

It is often asserted that Islam has been propagated and 
enforced by the POWER OF THE SWORD. No sensible Muslim 
denies it. Nay, more, he finds in the history of nations that 
every religion has been propagated by the sword. And at 
the present time Germany, Britain, and Japan owe their 
positions as great powers to the sword. If all Christian 
nations were nations of Christians there would perhaps be no 
war; but as matters now stand, war is inevitable, and the 
sensible Muslim does not even apologise for it. The Holy 
Kuran not only justifies it, but sanctifies it, and very minute 
are the instructions for lawfully carrying on a " Jihad " or 



ISLAM AND COMMON SENSE 539 

religious war. The great American transcendentalist, Mr 
Emerson, says : " War educates the senses, calls into action 
the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into 
such close collision in critical moments that man measures 
man." But how lenient and merciful is the warlike spirit of 
Islam as compared with that of the Israelites, when the Lord 
is said to have instructed Samuel to send Saul against the 
Amalekites: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Now go and 
smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare 
them not ; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, 
ox and sheep, camel and ass " (1 Samuel xv. 3). The Christian 
Crusaders were animated by the same spirit. Joseph Michaud, 
the French historian, tells us in his Bibliotheque des Croisades 
that, when the Christians took Jerusalem, in 1099, the "triumph 
of the Cross " was celebrated by the slaughter of seventy 
thousand people, and that neither age nor sex met with any 
mercy. But let us compare this with the capture of the Holy 
City by Saladin, eighty-eight years afterwards, or the taking of 
the city by Khalifah Omar in the early days of Islam. 

Assuming that Modern Islam does no more represent 
the teachings of the Arabian Prophet than Modern Christianity 
represents the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the question 
arises : ISA RENAISSANCE POSSIBLE IN ISLAM ? Such a 
"re-birth" of the intellectual and moral attitude as took 
place in Europe at the close of what is called the Middle 
Ages ? Is such a thing possible in the East ? We think it 
is possible, and highly probable. What has taken place in 
Japan can take place in China, India, Afghanistan, Persia, 
and even Arabia, as well as along the north of Africa ; and 
we believe that Islam will rise to the necessary conditions. 
In both ancient and modern times religion has spread by 
conquest, by a higher civilisation, and by the demands of 
commerce. And there are now three great religions in the 
field : Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Each of these 
forms of belief is adapted to different forms of civilisation, 
and to different spiritual aspirations. And surely the time 



540 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

is coming when " Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah 
shall not vex Ephraim, and when every man shall sit under 
his own vine and under his own fig tree, none daring to make 
him afraid." Buddhism has a wide field before it in China ; 
Christianity must readjust its social conditions in Europe 
and America ; and Islam has a very special mission in Africa 
and Central Asia. The Prophet of Arabia seems to have 
foreseen the time "when the earth shall shake with its 
quakings, and shall bring forth her burdens, and men shall 
say, What aileth thee? On that day the earth shall tell 
her glad tidings, for the Lord shall inspire her. And men 
shall come up in SEPARATE COMPANIES to show their works 
unto God, and he who hath done an atom of good shall see 
it" (The Kuran, Sura 119). 

IBN ISHAK. 



THE MESSAGE OF MR G. K. 
CHESTERTON. 

THE REV. JOHN A. BUTTON, M.A., 

Minister of Belhaven Church, Glasgow. 

HERE is one qualification which I can claim for presuming 
to write upon the work of Mr Gilbert K. Chesterton with 
the view of indicating his spirit and intention this, namely, 
that I start with a rather enthusiastic prejudice in his favour. 
For it is one of many proofs that Mr Chesterton has some- 
thing vital to say to us, and challenges the very temper of the 
time, that of those who know his work with any real under- 
standing, there are only two classes those who receive him 
with enthusiasm, and those who become quite angry when 
you mention his name. There are, of course, others who adopt 
another attitude. They say he is simply a very bold and 
careless writer who has a trick of exaggeration and paradox. 
I do not propose to deal with these last : no good could come 
of it ; we have nothing in common. 

In dealing with a man's work, it is an advantage to have 
a prejudice in his favour. It seems to me indeed that it is 
only about those for whom we have a private regard that we 
ould take upon ourselves to speak. Our prejudice gives us 
ur point of view, and in every region our view is largely 
etermined by our point of view. We know how very 
angerous an exercise it is for us to be speaking about one 
ho is absent, unless we are quite sure that we like him. 
e know how, otherwise, we are apt to fall into a merely 

541 



542 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

external and critical tone of voice, to make an unfair selection 
of his words or his actions, and so arrive at a conclusion 
which really all the time was predetermined by the bias of 
our mind. The fact is, certainly, that in dealing with a man 
like Chesterton, who is never for one moment engaged with 
anything less than the ultimate meaning of life, we cannot 
avoid playing with loaded dice. On ultimate matters, we 
have none of us mere opinions, in the strict sense of the word. 
We have really only prejudices. What we fondly imagine to 
be our opinions are without doubt the effect or resultant 
within us of an unfathomable wealth of instincts, reasons, 
desires, corroborated or modified or contradicted by educa- 
tion, by environment, by the stimulus of example, by the 
rebuke of pain all these fixed, summarised, and sealed in 
moulds of thought or faith from time to time by some pre- 
eminent event of our personal life. The white sheet of paper 
with which we begin our life is an impossible fancy. We 
begin with, so to speak, a sheet of sensitised paper on which 
innumerable characters are already inscribed in invisible ink. 
We begin with a possible career ready to declare itself, ready 
to take advantage of occasions, ready to find correspondences 
in the world. What we see in life depends, when all is said, 
upon certain secrets of ultimate personality; and what we 
shall see in any man like Chesterton, whose whole intellectual 
interest is in life considered in its ultimate significance, will 
likewise depend upon the secret things of our spirit. 

It is easy to name the features in Chesterton's work which 
have made the bricks fly at his head. Those features which 
have provoked this violence in certain souls have had a milder 
effect in the case of certain others : they scarcely know 
whether to accept him or not. For one thing, his confidence 
in the value of human existence, or (to use the words we 
know best) his belief in God, is a very strange thing in those 
high places of literature, and art and philosophy, which to- 
gether form Chesterton's chosen ground. And in his case 
belief in God is no difficult attainment, no conclusion to 



THE MESSAGE OF G. K. CHESTERTON 543 

which he merely inclines simply to save him from despair or 
madness. (He sees very clearly that faith alone really does 
save men from despair and madness, but it was not because of 
that that he first believed.) He believes in God with hearti- 
ness and uproariousness. If you were to ask him, as many of 
his critics in various ways have asked him, for what reason he 
believes, he would probably retort by telling you that it is for 
the same reason as he eats, or laughs, or takes a walk in the 
moonlight, i.e., because he wants to. He would be quite willing 
to confess to you that ultimately the reason for the faith in 
his heart was precisely the same as the reason for, say, the nose 
on his face namely, that there it is, that he was so made. 
Deeply considered, that is neither frivolous nor unphilo- 
sophical. We might make a list of the most serious thinkers 
of the world, beginning with St Augustine (to go no farther 
back), including such names as Pascal, and our own Butler, 
and closing with the contemporary school of philosophy in 
Oxford, and with William James of Harvard, the funda- 
mental argument for faith in each case being simply that 
which Chesterton states and reiterates with violence and 
enthusiasm : that so we are made, that to be a man is to have 
so to put it some share in God. 

This defence of faith which Chesterton has celebrated, 
viz. that the faculty and exercise of faith belong to the 
proper life and essence of man, that belief is a normal function 
of the human soul is his message to our time : it is the 
background and motive of all his work. He is the pro- 
tagonist of normal men, seeking to declare and to defend 
their rights, and, above everything, their right to believe in 
God. I do not wonder, therefore, that those people should 
not like Chesterton, and should privately be rather astonished 
that a man of his wide-awakeness and erudition should be 
saying the confident things that he does say, and that his 
whole work should be penetrated by Christianity - - those 
people who imagined that the whole Christian view of God 
and the world had received its quietus from Tyndal and 



544 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Huxley and Renan and Strauss, who have not been giving 
their minds to the later stages of the controversy, and who are 
therefore not aware of the embarrassments which pure material- 
ism has discovered from its own postulates. But it is not 
only the substance of Chesterton which offends many ; it is 
not only that certain people are enraged that the spiritual 
basis of life should have found such a cheerful and boisterous 
defender, who will not take the materialists so seriously as 
they take themselves : there are many others who are prob- 
ably in perfect agreement with Chesterton's principles and 
point of view who are nevertheless offended and irritated by 
the manner in which he will say what he has to say. There 
is no doubt whatever that Chesterton's humour and playful- 
ness his ridiculousness, indeed has had the effect of diminish- 
ing his authority for a great many people. It is a very curious 
thing that we all of us are much more easily convinced by a 
solemn manner than by a happy manner. For my own part, 
I agree with Chesterton that when we deal in a merely solemn 
way with the ultimate meaning of our life it is a proof that 
at that moment we ourselves are not very sure of it. It was 
this paradox which the plain man a verger he is reported to 
have been had at the back of his mind, when he professed 
that although he had heard some twenty courses of Bampton 
Lectures on the Defence of Faith he still remained a humble 
believer. 

Let me bring before your minds an historical contrast. 
There is a very obvious similarity between the humour 
of Thomas Carlyle and that of Chesterton. There is, indeed, 
a very interesting identity between the messages of the 
one and the other, Carlyle girding at the Utilitarians of 
his day as Chesterton pokes fun at the "Scientists" of our 
own. But Carlyle has not to encounter the suspicion of 
people as Chesterton must, and this I believe really for one 
great reason. Carlyle is solemn, he is heavy, he is awful. 
It may not be true in fact that he counselled a humble 
tobacconist, who confessed that she had not the particular 



THE MESSAGE OF G. K. CHESTERTON 545 

brand that he asked for but had another quite as good, that 
she should always deal in the eternal verities that may not 
be a true story, but it ought to be. Now Chesterton will not 
be solemn, and never is he so full of laughter and joy as when 
he is dealing with the most momentous things. Carlyle is 
always making his way towards some tremendous aphorism 
which shall embody the argument of a whole paragraph or 
chapter ; whereas Chesterton is always making for some 
apparently frivolous instance or paradox. 

Now I venture to say that just as the teaching of Carlyle 
and this is true of all merely solemn minds is much 
shallower than it looks, so that the farther you go into it the 
less original or profound it is ; so the teaching of Mr Chesterton, 
gay and careless and ridiculous as it so frequently seems to be, 
is at the last always serious, and to anyone who knows the 
age in which we live, who knows what is being said, and the 
conclusions which are being formed, his words will always 
have the effect of sending the spirit sounding on and on. 

For the fact is you cannot do justice to Mr Chesterton's 
humour and whimsicality, as an instrument for arriving at 
truth, until you take hold of this that, in his view, the sense 
of humour, the happy way of looking at things, the faculty 
for joy, is an integral part of the human soul, having rights as 
inalienable as any other. In his fine paper in the volume on 
Heretics, in answer to Mr M'Cabe's criticism, that he ought 
to consider the intellectual problems of life more gravely, 
Chesterton deals at length with the charge; and almost on 
every page of his work he presents the same thesis. For 
example : " A man must be very full of faith to jest with his 
divinity. ... To the Hebrew prophets, their religion was so 
solid a thing, like a mountain or a mammoth, that the irony of 
its contact with trivial and fleeting things struck them like a 
blow." "Merriment is one of the world's natural flowers 
and not one of its exotics. Gigantesque levity, flamboyant 
eloquence, are the mere outbursts of a human sympathy and 
bravado as old and solid as the stars." " We should all like 

VOL. VII. No. 3. 35 



546 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

to speak poetry at the moments when we truly live ; and if we 
do not speak it, it is because we have an impediment in our 
speech." 

In his volume on Dickens he says a thing which must have 
been suggested not only by the reading of Dickens, but by 
observing the processes of his own mind. " Dickens," he says, 
"had to be ridiculous in order to begin to be true. His 
characters that begin solemn end futile; his characters that 
begin frivolous end solemn in the best sense. His foolish 
figures are not only more entertaining than his serious figures, 
they are also much more serious." We shall give an example 
of this in a moment. 

Let us dwell for a little longer on this matter I mean the 
medium of good-humour and gaiety and colloquialness which 
Chesterton uses, and cannot help using, in the interests of truth ; 
and let us keep before ourselves the literary medium which by 
contrast Carlyle adopted. I should say that the difference is 
just this : Carlyle, though by birth one of the common people, 
nevertheless speaks of the people or at the people from above. 
Chesterton, though by birth, as I should imagine, of a much 
higher rank, in all his writing and thinking speaks of the people 
from their own point of view, from the point of view which 
they would take up if they should ever become self-conscious 
and enlightened enough to express themselves. It is a definite 
charge which Chesterton makes against Carlyle, that he had no 
belief in the people, no belief in the elementary instincts of the 
masses of men ; that he assumed that his message was in 
advance of them, that he could be nothing else than a voice 
crying in the wilderness. And so, rather than change the 
pitch of his voice, he remained in his wilderness, and in fact 
got rather to like being there. Now merely to be a prophet, 
merely to fling thunderbolts of truth at people, is, in essential 
matters, to have given up the whole business. Our Lord said 
of a great moral teacher of his day that he was more than a 
prophet : I believe He meant that he was a good man. 
" There are two main moral necessities for the work of a great 



THE MESSAGE OF G. K. CHESTERTON 547 

man," says Chesterton, speaking of Carlyle : " the first is that 
he should believe in the truth of his message ; the second is 
that he should believe in the acceptability of his message. It 
was the whole tragedy of Carlyle that he had the first and not 
the second. ... It was this simplicity of confidence, not only 
in God, but in the image of God, that was lacking in Carlyle." 
I seem to see everywhere in Chesterton, and this is in my 
own view the explanation of his entire literary manner, a kind 
of passion to be understood. His critics are perhaps quite 
right in saying that he chose his manner in order to startle 
people into reading him. I should not put it that way ; 
though I think there is something in it. Chesterton would 
hold, I believe, as indeed we have quoted that whatever 
is true is a thing that should be known, and known by as 
many people as possible. Truth is public property. One of 
our human and social duties is to communicate the truth to 
one another. He would say that a man has not got hold of 
truth who sets out with the idea that people will not hear it. 
That, on the contrary, it is the first business of a man who has 
anything to say that he shall say it in such a way that the 
people, the common people, the people who are most directly 
to be affected, shall become aware of it. A man gets a sight 
of truth not simply in order that he may embody it in words 
that please himself, but that he may embody it in such words 
as shall give it its greatest immediate reach ; and so Dante 
writes his Divine Comedy in the lingua franca, in the speech 
of the common people; Luther translates the Bible into 
German ; and, if I may dare the comparison, Chesterton 
makes use of good -humour, ridiculous illustrations, in order, 
if you like to put it so, to get a hearing in order, as I prefer 
to put it, to get his message delivered to the proper quarter. 
"There are those," he says somewhere, "who declare that 
they have no doubt the Salvation Army is right in its aims, 
but they very much dislike its methods. On the other hand, 
I have my doubts about its aims, but I have no doubt at all 
about its methods, these are obviously right." For, he goes 



548 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

on to say, there must always be something corybantic about 
religion, about the announcement of truth. The conclusion 
of this whole matter we might put in an image, not of 
Chesterton's own, but not unlike many a one of his. 

If a man gets up on a lorry at a street corner and begins 
to hammer a huge gong so that everybody is compelled to 
look in his direction ; if he lays down the gong and takes up 
a bell, and rings it violently so that a crowd gather, you must 
not conclude that he is a mountebank. He may be a man who 
has something to say. He may indeed be one of those men 
to whom the world has all along owed so much, who imagine 
that unless the people who are passing stop and listen to him 
they will in various ways go to the devil. Recollecting the 
great and even tremendous figures in history, it is only fair 
to wait until we hear him say what he has to say; not to 
condemn him by the grotesqueness of his appearance, remem- 
bering, say, John the Baptist, or by something in his voice that 
jars ; but judging him, if we must judge him, by the manifest 
passion which, as he goes on speaking, begins to kindle within 
him and to sway his words, and by the fire which, by a pro- 
found and unconquerable affinity, begins to kindle in our 
hearts as we listen to him. For in our day also as in the days 
of Elijah, fire is the sign of God. 

Still working our way into the substance of Mr Chester- 
ton's philosophy, let me here deal it can only be in a 
hurried way with another feature of his work which has 
been declared to be an offence. The common criticism of 
Chesterton is that he is always striving after paradox. That 
criticism, you observe, resolves itself into two separate charges. 
The first is, that he strives ; the second is, that the con- 
clusions at which he arrives are always paradoxical. With 
regard to the first, viz. that Chesterton strives after paradox, 
I think it very manifestly unfair. I am quite sure that, on 
the contrary, his greatest artistic difficulty is to keep back the 
paradoxes which are crowding down to the point of his pen. 
Mr Chesterton never affects me as striving after anything. 



THE MESSAGE OF G. K. CHESTERTON 549 

It often happens with him, indeed, that he sees what is going 
to be the conclusion of his reasoning long before he has quite 
established it, and down it goes in all its crudeness long before 
he has prepared us for it. But that he strives after such 
effects never once occurred to me. A man does not need to 
strive after that particular way of expressing himself which he 
has practised consistently in every line of his writing, extend- 
ing now over as much literary matter as would fill a small 
library. It is quite as natural for him to be picturesque as it 
is for a great many of us not to be. It is as natural for him 
to be violent and excessive and uproarious as it is for other 
writers to be timid and futile and lady-like. It is as natural 
for him to arrive at paradoxes as it is for more solemn writers 
to arrive at platitudes. Indeed, there are perhaps only two 
conclusions to which all serious consideration of life can lead 
us either to the uttering of a platitude, a truism, or to the 
uttering of a paradox, the discovery, i.e., of a certain impassable 
chasm between subject and object, between things and the 
indomitable spirit of a man. I repeat, that what gives the 
impression of striving and posing to Chesterton's entire style 
is this : he sees at a glance the principle of the matter in hand, 
and then, without thinking further, embodies it in a very crude 
and haphazard illustration or figure. He knows and it is 
this which makes his method quite legitimate that if his 
thought is really right, then this illustration which he has 
created will bring out certain aspects or corroborations which 
he could not have stated with such concreteness of definition 
if he had restricted himself to the language of pure thought. 
There is nothing more characteristic of his style than this : 
that an image or figure which he has flung down begins to 
mean more and more for himself begins to clarify his own 
intermediate processes, and to give edge and eloquence to his 
contention. In this, as in many other matters, it is easy to 
trace the great influence of Browning upon Chesterton. Car- 
lyle tells us, in one of his translations of Tieck, of a baron who 
needed to jump back and forward over a table in order to get 



550 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

himself into a good humour. Some men with the same object 
in view I mean, in order to warm up their mind take cold 
baths ; some take hard walks over the hills ; some drink strong 
coffee: Chesterton confronts his own mind with violent and 
unlikely situations. Let me give an illustration which, if we 
had time, we should find to cast light upon all these points, 
and especially upon this point, that Chesterton's mind works 
most easily under the stimulus of an apparently intractable 
metaphor or concrete illustration, and that the illustration 
which seems far-fetched so that people accuse him of striving 
after it, begins to fall back again into the living context of the 
man's thought. " Suppose that a great commotion arises in 
the street about something, let us say a lamp-post which 
many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad 
monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached 
upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of 
the Schoolmen, ' Let us first of all consider, my brethren, 
the value of light. If light be in itself good. . . .' At 
this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All 
the people make a rush for the lamp-post. The lamp-post is 
down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each 
other on their un-mediaeval practicality. But as things go on, 
they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled 
the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light ; 
some because they wanted old iron ; some because they 
wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil ; some 
thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much ; some 
acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery ; 
some because they wanted to smash something. And there 
is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So 
gradually and inevitably to-day, to-morrow, or the next day- 
there comes back the conviction that the monk was right 
after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of 
light. Only, what we might have discovered under the 
gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark " (Heretics). 
1 detect no evidence of striving, or posing, or intellectual 



THE MESSAGE OF G. K. CHESTERTON 551 

levity in an illustration of that kind : and it is one of probably 
tens of thousands. I saw that some one the other day wrote 
an article in a newspaper full of veiled disparagement of 
Chesterton. The writer insinuated that it was simply a kind 
of trick such as he himself and some other people could 
easily affect if they had the mind to. I recall that that was 
the very condition on which Charles Lamb said a certain 
man could write the plays of Shakespeare " if he had had the 
mind." But seriously, I wish some of these modest men 
would come out of their hiding-places and augment the great 
tide of speculative joy and fundamental confidence in life 
which Mr Chesterton has done so much to raise. I should 
say of most of us what he himself says of people who thought 
they could easily have written some of the easy-going but 
inevitable pages of Dickens : " Perhaps we could have created 
Mr Guppy, but the effort would certainly have exhausted 
us : we should be ever afterwards wheeled about in a bath- 
chair at Bournemouth." 

It is perfectly true that Chesterton sees truth in paradox ; 
but it is no merely literary form with him. The style 
here is the man ; and to Chesterton truth is found by beings 
such as we are, and placed as we are, only in the guise of 
paradox. I cannot attempt to justify Chesterton's position 
here, or even to illustrate it, though if one had time it 
would be an easy matter to show that we are all quite 
familiar with what he means, and that it is our own habitual 
and unconscious attitude towards life and experience. But 
take, for example, such words as faith and hope and love. It 
is the very nature of faith, that it comes into play only with 
regard to matters which from certain other points of view 
and on other categories are unbelievable. There is and 
there must always be an opposition between the intuitions 
of faith and those materials and conclusions with which our 
merely intellectual faculty deals. The truth is as Hegel 
said "in a relationship." In this total world, there is room 
for faith as there is room for reason, but they deal with life 



552 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

on different grades, and with different ends in view. So the 
very nature of hope, which Mr Chesterton so thoughtfully 
describes as " the irreducible minimum of the spirit," is that 
it goes beyond experience, and if need be contradicts experience. 
In Mr Watts' well-known picture, " What is Hope ? " it 
is the figure of a woman, blindfolded, sitting on the circle of 
the earth. In her hand she holds an instrument of music. 
She has struck one string, and it has broken at her touch ; 
she has struck another, and it too has snapped. One chord 
remains. It alone, it at last, must stand the strain and 
challenge of her touch. From it the music must come, else 
there is no music in this world at all. That is hope. Though 
one chord and another has given way, has snapped under the 
test ; though only one thread remains as ground and reason for 
this invincible instinct of the soul, she prepares to strike, 
knowing that the last chord will not fail. So too, the very 
nature of love is, that it goes out towards the unlovely, 
towards those who at present seem incapable of appreciating 
or understanding love. 

Paradox in literature has its counterpart in the antinomies 
of philosophy which represent the farthest and deepest 
insight possible to us into the region of reality. Recollect- 
ing the ill-success which attended Mr Haldane's ingenuous 
effort, on a recent and notorious occasion, to enlighten the 
mind of a Lord Chancellor on the antinomies of Free 
Will and Predestination, I shall not abuse your patience, 
though really the whole matter is not so very difficult. It 
is one which was very accurately appreciated by the re- 
ligious people of Scotland for two centuries, and ought 
not to have been beyond the dialectical skill of Lord 
Halsbury. I must content myself with repeating that para- 
dox in literature is simply the expression of that apparent 
conflict between subject and object and yet that necessary 
relationship between subject and object which marks the 
boundary of our philosophical vision. 

Now it is no part of Mr Chesterton's ambition to remain 



THE MESSAGE OF G. K. CHESTERTON 553 

in the clouds. Having discovered in the clouds the nature of 
paradox, or having pursued it into the clouds, having seen in 
the loneliness of his own most accomplished mind that truth 
must always have this paradoxical expression, he sees it every- 
where, and discovers it to us, for our joy, and to keep off the 
dreadful tyranny of the merely scientific category. Taking 
the large question of life itself, he sees, like Tolstoy, like 
Carlyle, like every true and resolute thinker, that life is a 
much earlier thing than thought; that we live before we 
reason ; that to this day the really great and characteristic 
things which we do, we do not at the dictate of our cool intel- 
lectual faculty, but in obedience to primitive and unfathomable 
instincts, appetites, desires, ideals, faiths. Seeing that this is 
so, Chesterton rejoices to point out to the soul of man its 
inviolable way of escape. 

All this brings us, late perhaps, and circuitously, to what 
we must call the message of Mr Chesterton ; for, as he himself 
defines it, "paradox simply means a certain defiant joy 
which belongs to belief." 

To put the matter in as short compass as possible, leaving it 
to be modified in our own minds as we proceed, Mr Chesterton 
is the protagonist in our particular day of the natural man. 
He has been chosen by virtue of his temperament, by virtue 
of the fortunate emergence in him of certain primitive faculties 
which in most men of his condition have been rendered im- 
potent or untrustworthy he has been chosen to champion the 
rights of, so to call him, the average and catholic man. If the 
phrase were not so loaded with both a sinister and a merely 
affected connotation, we should say that his message is to call 
us back (or, as he would say, forward) to the joys and the 
duties and the faith of the natural life. The life of nature as 
man's sphere is, in Chesterton's view, something very different 
from a merely animal life, without social restraints or without 
those equally fundamental restraints which the wisdom of the 
race has discovered and approved. In his view, and as he 
himself might put it, the only thing in man which is as 



554 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

obstinate as his love of liberty is his love of bondage. The 
only thing that man will do as inevitably as he will live a 
merely animal life, is that he will repent and put himself in 
irons. The only thing which is as true of man as that he is 
made of clay, is that into that clay, by some unfathomable 
mystery, a Holy God has infused something of His own. It 
is this man whose nature, which bears within itself traces of 
much besides its lower status, which bears within itself 
evidences of its long and hazardous journey, and of its 
difficult and precious enlightenment it is this natural man, 
in the sense of unsophisticated man, whose total soul 
Chesterton celebrates and defends. 

And arriving at the moment when he has arrived, 
Chesterton has acquired the quality of greatness. For a 
great man in these matters is a man who arrives at the 
right moment, who comes to the rescue of that in man which 
at the moment is threatened yet which must not be lost. I 
hail him as a great writer when I consider the great tempta- 
tion of the hour with which he deals. That man in his 
measure is a great man whose word has the effect of reassuring 
us, just as that writer is a bad writer who disposes his 
readers to succumb. Anything is bad which disheartens us 
on our predestined journey. Anything is bad which raises a 
suspicion as to the value of our existence. Anything is bad 
which would lead us to disparage the human enterprise. 
Anything is bad which would make us let our hands fall 
and our knees shake, face to face with our elementary duties 
and responsibilities, and face to face with our own ignorance 
and the darkness that lies about us. Anything is bad which 
makes us regret life. All laughter at man is hollow and of 
the devil. The account of man which is thrust upon us by 
a hasty and dogmatic materialism is, from the point of view 
of man's instincts, and from the point of view of the highest 
words he has ever obeyed, a form of laughter at man. As 
such it is bad, a thing it may even be to be put down one 
day, as witchcraft was put down, and for the same reason 



THE MESSAGE OF G. K. CHESTERTON 555 

that it is seducing man from his true and normal and natural 
life. 

One general line of criticism which Chesterton applies to 
those tendencies in modern life and thought which in his view 
threaten that deposit of faith on which man has come thus far, 
is this. He convicts the opponent with whom he is dealing at 
the moment of neglecting some fact of the human soul which is 
just as trustworthy, just as inalienable to man, as is the faculty 
on which the threatening theory is basing itself. In short, 
in Chesterton's view, the specialists are always wrong when 
they leave their own particular field and impose their methods 
on what he would call "the rich and reeking human person- 
ality." He would say : You cannot exhaust all the qualities 
of a man. You cannot really sum him up. You can only 
examine him in the abstract. But then he does not exist in 
the abstract. You can examine him only after he is dead. 
All your reports about men are therefore of the nature of 
post-mortem reports ; they have nothing to say as to the 
very thing which is of most importance life itself. This, 
which is true of man, considered physiologically, is true like- 
wise of him considered as a sentient being. Take, for 
example, the nature of personal happiness, or joy. You 
may make out a list of circumstances which ought to insure 
this joy ; and you may be all wrong. You may surround 
a man, like Carlyle's shoeblack, with all those circum- 
stances, and yet leave him miserable. You may see, 
on the other hand, a human being in rags and difficulties, 
with none of the circumstances which according to your 
inventory secure human joy. You may conclude that you 
are in the presence of a miserable creature ; whereas you may 
be in the presence of one who is in love, and therefore delirious 
with human faith and confidence in the value of existence. 
Or you adduce your reasons for denying to man his imperish- 
able confidence in a will beyond his own in short, in God. 
You may forecast his inevitable doom, to perish like the 
beasts ; but 



556 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

" Just when you're safest, there is a sunset touch, 
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, 
A chorus-ending from Euripides ; 
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears 
As old and new at once as Nature's self." 

Chesterton would test every theory or proposition by its 
fitness to satisfy, or to control for a higher exercise, some 
ineradicable endowment of man of man as we know him, in 
his glory and gloom alike, but above everything in his alto- 
gether divine perseverance in life. He would arraign all 
systems which invade man's sanctuary of feeling and desire 
and faith, as he would arraign a brother man accused of some 
crime against man's nature or the social compact he would 
arraign them all before a jury of common men. 

" The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards 
specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers because 
they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, trained dancers 
because they dance better, especially instructed laughers because they laugh 
better, and so on and so on. The principle has been applied to law and politics 
by innumerable modern writers Many Fabians have insisted that a greater 
part of our political work should be performed by experts. Many legalists 
have declared that the untrained jury should be altogether supplanted by the 
trained judge. 

" Now if this world of ours were really what is called reasonable, I do 
not know that there would be any fault to find with this. But the true result 
of all experience and the true foundation of all religion is this that the four 
or five things that it is most practically essential that a man should know are 
all of them what people call paradoxes. That is to say, that though we all 
find them in life to be mere plain truths, yet we cannot easily state them in 
words without being guilty of seeming verbal contradictions. One of them, 
for instance, is the unimpeachable platitute that the man who finds most 
pleasure for himself is often the man who leasts hunts for it. Another is the 
paradox of courage : the fact that the way to avoid death is not to have too 
much aversion to it. Whoever is careless enough of his bones to climb some 
hopeless cliff above the tide may save his bones by that carelessness. Whoever 
will lose his life, the same shall save it : an entirely practical and prosaic 
statement. 

" Now one of these four or five paradoxes which should be taught to 
every infant prattling at his mother's knee is the following : That the more a 
man looks at a thing the less he can see it, and the more a man learns a thing 
the less he knows it. The Fabian argument of the expert, that the man who 
is trained should be the man who is trusted, would be absolutely unanswerable 
if it were really true that a man who studied a thing and practised it every 
day went on seeing more and more of its significance. But he does not. He 



THE MESSAGE OF G. K. CHESTERTON 557 

goes on seeing less and less of its significance. In the same way, alas, we all 
go on every day, unless we are continually goading ourselves into gratitude and 
humility, seeing less and less of the significance of the sky or the stones. 

" Now it is a terrible business to mark a man out for the vengeance of 
men. But it is a thing to which a man can grow accustomed, as he can 
to other terrible things : he can even grow accustomed to the sun. And the 
horrible thing about all legal officials, even the best, about all judges, magi- 
strates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, is not that they are wicked (some 
of them are good), not that they are stupid (several of them are quite 
intelligent) it is simply that they have got used to it. 

" Strictly, they do not see the prisoner in the dock : all they see is the 
usual man in the usual place. They do not see the awful court of judgment : 
they only see their own workshop. Therefore the instinct of Christian 
civilisation has most wisely declared that into their judgments there shall upon 
every occasion be infused fresh blood and fresh thoughts from the street. 
Men shall come in who can see the court and the crowd, the coarse faces of 
the policemen and the professional criminals, the wasted faces of the wastrels, 
the unreal faces of the gesticulating counsel, and see it all as one sees a new 
picture or a ballet hitherto unvisited. 

" Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, that determining 
the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained 
men. If it wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no 
more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury-box. 
When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any 
trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything 
done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing 
round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of 
Christianity." 

Mr Chesterton, like every other who would aid the human 
soul, has not delivered his message in so many philosophical 
principles. He does not speak or write in vacuo, but with his 
eye upon some threatening spirit of our time. And at least 
so it seems to me he has a faultless eye for the moment 
when any tendency is beginning to assail the abiding interest 
of man. Therefore he has been compelled to deliver his 
message in the way of criticism and opposition to tendencies 
in thought or speculation, and in life, which seem to him 
likely to seduce man from the main highway of healthy and 
natural and believing life on which alone he is equal to himself 
and secure. Even as the angel measured the foundations of 
the Heavenly Jerusalem, so Chesterton measures and tests 
the principles, the effects for man's present moral practice and 
his outlook, of certain ways of looking at life he tests them 



558 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

all "according to the measure of a man, i.e. of the angel." 
And therein also lies his confidence. The human soul he 
sees too firmly rooted in essential things, too firmly persuaded 
of the essential good of life, to be disturbed for more than a 
period from its true career. As Abraham Lincoln said and 
it is the very quality of all great words to serve greater causes 
than their first cause " you may deceive some people all the 
time, and all the people for some time ; but never all the 
people all the time." 

Man has seen what he has seen ; and never can he be as 
though he had not seen it. And, Chesterton would add, man 
has seen Christ ; and would rejoice with the dying Marius in 
Pater's great work (Pater, whom alone, as it seems to me, 
Chesterton does less than justice to), that in Jesus Christ 
there has been erected in this world a plea, a standard, an 
afterthought which mankind will always have in reserve 
against any wholly mean or mechanical theory of himself and 
his conditions. 

In the course of his intellectual career so far, Chesterton 
has dealt with some of the chief doctrines for man which have 
been urged upon us in the name of enlightenment during the 
last generation. " Heresies " he calls these doctrines ; and 
this not because they conflict with the theological propositions 
of the Church, but because, if accepted, they would seduce and 
ultimately destroy the soul of man as it has come to be and 
as we know it. Pessimism, with its strange and insane joy 
in its own success, he finds tolerable as a system of thought 
only so long as you take care that it never be translated into 
life and action ; for if pessimism be true, then death is the 
only proper pursuit of man. " The popularity of pure and 
unadulterated pessimism is," he says, " an oddity. It is almost 
a contradiction in terms. Men would no more receive the 
news of the failure of existence or of the harmonious hostility 
of the stars with ardour or popular rejoicing than they would 
light bonfires for the arrival of cholera, or dance a breakdown 
when they were condemned to be hanged." 



THE MESSAGE OF G. K. CHESTERTON 559 

" The pessimists who attack the universe are always under 
this disadvantage : they have an exhilarating consciousness 
that they could make the sun and moon better ; but they also 
have the depressing consciousness that they could not make 
the sun and moon at all." 

The fact is, those who write thus gloomily about life con- 
sidered as a whole, are usually comfortable above the average 
lot in some particular of their life which they take care not to 
lose. " Existence has been praised and absolved by a chorus 
of pessimists. The work of giving thanks to heaven is, as it 
were, ingeniously divided among them. . . . Omar Khayyam 
is established in the cellar and swears that it is the only room 
in the house. . . . Even the blackest of pessimistic writers 
enjoys his art. At the precise moment that he has written 
some shameless and terrible indictment of creation, his one 
pang of joy in the achievement joins the universal chorus of 
gratitude with the scent of the wild flower and the song of 
the bird." 

It is because Atheism conflicts with an instinct of the 
soul which has been enticed and corroborated and purified by 
human experience, that Chesterton assails it and predicts its 
failure to tyrannise over men. It is because a doctrinaire 
Socialism is contrary to the heights and depths of man's 
soul, because it would restrict man to a tame paddock, man 
who has something in him which hungers for the risks of 
hazardous and unequal living, that Chesterton has no fear 
that it will ever be embraced. It is because Evolution is 
really the enemy of Revolution, and because, were it accepted 
as the whole truth that we are fated to rise in the scale, we 
should all sit down and wait either until we were raised, or cast 
aside to make room for another's rising, that Chesterton is 
afraid of Evolution. It is because Puritanism lays emphasis 
upon the spirit in man, that he celebrates its great service to 
our country. It is because Puritanism neglects the flesh that 
he condemns it. It is because Medievalism and ^Estheticism 
find their happiness in looking backwards, and thus cease to 



560 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

make for that total victory of the race which if it is to be 
anywhere must lie in front of us ; it is because many writers 
do not see that in their little plans and purposes for men 
they are often playing with fire, tampering, as Stevenson 
says, with the lock which holds down all sorts of sulphurous 
and subterranean things that Chesterton lays about him with 
the ancient sword of the spirit. 

And now, I must content myself with having written these 
things in appreciation of one whom I consider a very great and 
constructive force, altogether on the side of man, which is 
eventually on the side of God. Recalling his general line 
of criticism, I should say it is what pedants would call an 
argumentum ad Iwminem. Personally I have always held that 
on matters of prime human importance no other argument 
tells in the long run except the argumentum ad hominem. 
"Humanly speaking," a student began. "My dear sir," 
said his professor, "there's no other way of speaking." 

When Tennyson protests against the materialistic doctrine 
of man, he protests in the name of a warm and instinctive 
desire for the contrary. His heart, he tells us, rises up like 
a man in wrath. In fact, he simply won't have it. And 
really no theory will ever establish itself in the mind of man 
if his gorge simply rises against it. When Darwin's Descent 
of Man was at the height of its popularity, George Gilfillan, 
a popular preacher of that time in Dundee, voiced the opposi- 
tion in quite a happy phrase. " I won't have a monkey for 
my grandfather," said the good man. Now I venture to 
think that there is something in the protest which will always 
be invincible. And really it is something more than the 
recoil of the spirit from a proposed degradation. It is good 
science likewise. The really important thing for us is not, 
Where did we come from ? but, Where are we bound for ? 

We may have had the lowliest of origins. The Bible 
confesses we are made from the dust ; though it declares that 
it was God who made us. The point is, here we are, and we 
are not tired of rising, if we may, in the scale. Now there 



THE MESSAGE OF G. K. CHESTERTON 561 

must always have been something in us like a coiled-up 
spring which urged us on so far, leaving many things 
behind which belonged to our more lowly lot. 

When the present German Emperor showed himself able 
to dispense with Prince Bismarck, when, in Sir John Tenniel's 
phrase, " he dropped the pilot," we all concluded that there 
was something in the German Emperor, both as a man and 
as a ruler of men, which made him equal to that. It is quite 
a fair thing to say, by the same token, that there must always 
have been something in man, something which was only 
awaiting its opportunity, that enabled man, in a word, to 
drop his tail. 

Number Nine of the King's Regulations for Officers of the 
Navy contains these words : " Every officer is to refrain from 
making remarks or passing criticisms on the conduct or orders 
of his superiors which may tend to bring them into contempt, 
and is to avoid saying or doing anything which might dis- 
courage the men or render them dissatisfied with their 
condition or with the service on which they are or may 
be employed." 

Chesterton sees the human soul, arrived thus far not 
without difficulty. He sees that any fundamental health 
which we have is due to the power which is still within us 
of the Christian tradition as it gives an issue and a consecra- 
tion to the fountain of our natural life. 

And anyone who seriously interferes with the foundations 
of the soul, with the particular kind of hardihood which has 
become intertwined for ever with the Cross of Christ, 
Chesterton sees as a rebel or a traitor as a heretic in the 
sublime sense. And because as such he is poisoning the 
wells of all sane and hearty living, and cutting man off from 
his Source, like the great Florentine, Chesterton would 
appoint him a place in hell. 

JOHN A. HUTTON. 

GLASGOW. 

VOL. VII. No. 3. 36 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON. 

PROFESSOR WILLIAM JAMES. 

PROFESSOR HENRI BERGSON is a young man, comparatively, 
as influential philosophers go, having been born at Paris in 
1859. His career has been the routine one of a successful 
French professor. Entering the Ecole normale superieure at 
the age of twenty-two, he spent the next seventeen years 
teaching at several lycees, provincial or Parisian, until his 
fortieth year, when he was made professor at the Ecole normale 
superieure. Since 1900 he has been professor at the College 
de France, and member of the Institute since 1900. 

So far, then, as the outward facts go, Bergson's career has 
been commonplace to the utmost. Neither one of Taine's 
famous principles of explanation of great men, the race, the 
milieu, or the moment, no, nor all three together, will explain 
that peculiar way of looking at things that constitutes his 
mental individuality. Originality in men dates from nothing 
previous ; other things date from it, rather. I have to confess 
that Bergson's originality is so profuse that many of his ideas 
baffle me entirely. Now, many men are profusely original in 
that no man can understand them : violently peculiar ways 
of looking at things are no great rarity. The rarity is when 
great peculiarity of vision is allied with great lucidity and 
unusual command of all the classic expository apparatus. 
Bergson's resources in the way of erudition are remarkable, 
and in the way of expression they are simply phenomenal. 
This is why in France, where Tart de bien dire counts for so 

562 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON 563 

much and is so sure of appreciation, he has immediately taken 
so eminent a place in public esteem. Old-fashioned professors, 
whom his ideas quite fail to satisfy, nevertheless speak of his 
talent almost with bated breath, while the youngsters flock to 
him as to a master. 

If anything can make hard things easy to follow, it is a 
style like Bergson's. A straightforward style, an American 
reviewer lately called it, failing to see that such straight- 
forwardness means a flexibility of verbal resource that follows 
the thought without a crease or wrinkle, as elastic silk 
underclothing follows the movements of one's body. The 
lucidity of Bergson's way of putting things is what all readers 
are first struck by. It seduces you and bribes you in advance 
to become his disciple. It is a miracle, and he a real magician. 

M. Bergson, if I am rightly informed, came into philosophy 
through the gateway of mathematics. The old antinomies of 
the infinite were, I imagine, the irritant that first woke his 
faculties from their dogmatic slumber. Everyone remembers 
Zeno's famous paradox, or sophism, as many of our logic- 
books still call it, of Achilles and the tortoise, which only gives 
a dramatic character to the difficulty inherent in understanding 
intellectually any phenomenon whatever of continuous change. 

Take any such process of change, as, for instance, twenty 
seconds of time elapsing. If time is infinitely divisible, they 
simply cannot elapse, their end cannot be reached ; for no 
matter how much of them has already elapsed, before the 
remainder, however minute, can have wholly elapsed, the 
earlier half of it must first have elapsed. And this ever- 
rearising need of making the earlier half elapse^r,^ leaves time 
with always something to do before the last thing is done, so 
that the last thing never gets done. If in the natural world 
there were no other way of getting things save by such 
successive addition of all their possible fractions, no complete 
units or whole things would ever come into our possession, for 
the fraction's sum would always leave a remainder. But in point 
of fact nature doesn't make eggs by making first a half egg, 



564 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

then a quarter, then an eighth, etc., and adding them together. 
She either makes a whole egg at once or none at all, and so of all 
her other units. It is only in the sphere of change, then, where 
one part of a thing has necessarily to come into being before 
another part can come, that Zeno's paradox gives trouble. 

And it gives trouble then only if the succession of steps of 
change is infinitely divisible. If a bottle had to be emptied by 
an infinite number of successive decrements, the emptying 
simply could not terminate. In point of fact, however, bottles 
and coffee-pots empty themselves by a finite number of decre- 
ments, each definite of finite amount. Either a whole drop 
emerges or nothing emerges from the spout. If all change 
went thus drop-wise, or pulse-wise, so to speak, if real time 
sprouted or grew by units of duration of finite amount, just as 
our perceptions of it grow by pulses, there would be no Zeno- 
nian paradoxes or Kantian antinomies to trouble us. All our 
sensible experiences as we get them immediately do thus 
change by discrete pulses of perception, each of which keeps 
saying " more, more, more," or " less, less, less," as definite incre- 
ments or diminutions make themselves felt. The discreteness 
is still more obvious when, instead of old things changing, they 
cease, or when altogether new things come. Fechner's term 
of the " threshold," which has played such a part in the 
psychology of perception, is only one way of naming the 
quantitative discreteness of all our sensible experiences. They 
come to us in drops. Time itself comes in drops. 

Our ideal decomposition of the drops, which are all that we 
feel, into still finer fractions, is but an incident in that great 
transformation of the perceptual order into a conceptual order, 
which is our intellect's task. It is made in the interest of our 
rationalising faculty solely. The times directly felt in the 
experiences of living subjects have originally no common 
measure. Let a lump of sugar melt in a glass, to use one 
of M. Bergson's instances. We feel the time to be long 
while waiting for the process to end, but who knows how long 
or how short it feels to the sugar? All felt times coexist 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON 565 

and overlap or compenetrate each other thus vaguely ; but it 
pays us to reduce their confusion by plotting them on a com- 
mon scale, and it pays us still more to plot, against the same 
scale, the successive steps into which nature's various changes 
may be resolved, whether sensibly or conceivably. We thus 
straighten out the aboriginal privacy and vagueness, and can 
date things publicly, as it were, and by each other. The notion 
of one objective and " evenly flowing" time, cut into numbered 
instants, applies itself to all the phases, no matter how many, 
into which we cut the processes of nature. They are now 
definitely later or earlier one than another, and we can handle 
them mathematically, as we say, and far better, practically as 
well as theoretically, for having thus correlated them. 

Motion, to take a good example, is originally a turbid 
sensation, of which the native shape is very confused. But the 
mathematical mind intellectualises motion completely and puts 
it into a definition that can be used by logic : motion is now 
conceived as "the occupancy of serially successive points of 
space at serially successive instants of time." With such a defi- 
nition we escape wholly from the turbid privacy of sense. But 
do we not also escape from sense-reality altogether ? For this 
definition is of the absolutely static. It gives a set of one-to- 
one relations between space-points and time-points, which 
relations themselves are as fixed as the points are. It gives 
positions assignable ad infinitum, but how a body ever gets 
from one position to another it omits to mention. The body 
gets there by moving, of course ; but the conceived positions, 
however multiplied, contain no element of movement ; so Zeno, 
using positions exclusively in his discussion, has no alternative 
but to say that our intellect brands motion as a non-reality. 
Intellectualism here surely makes experience less instead of 
more intelligible. 

We of course need a stable scheme of concepts, stably 
related with each other, to lay hold of our experiences by. 
New reality, as it comes, gets conceptually strung upon this or 
that element of the scheme, which we have abstracted and 



566 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

named. The immutability of such an abstract scheme is its 
great practical merit ; the same identical terms and relations 
in it can always be recovered and referred to. Change itself 
is just such an inalterable concept. But all these abstract 
concepts are but as flowers gathered ; they are only moments 
dipped out from the stream of time, snap-shots taken, as by a 
kinetoscopic camera, at a life that is continuous. Useful as 
they are as samples of the garden, or to re-enter the stream 
with, or to insert in our revolving lantern, they have no 
value but this practical value. You cannot explain by them 
what makes any single phenomenon be or go you merely dot 
out the path it traverses. For you cannot make continuous 
being out of discontinuities, and your concepts are discon- 
tinuous. The stages into which you analyse a change are 
states ; the change itself goes on between them. It lies along 
their intervals, inhabits what your definition fails to gather up, 
and thus eludes conceptual explanation altogether. " When 
the mathematician," Bergson writes, " calculates the state of a 
system at the end of a time t, nothing need prevent him from 
supposing that betweenwhiles the universe vanishes in order 
suddenly to appear again at the due moment in the new 
configuration. It is only the t-th moment that counts that 
which flows throughout the interval, namely real time, plays 
no part in his calculation. ... In short, the world on which 
the mathematician operates is a world which dies and is born 
anew at every instant, like the world which Descartes thought 
of when he spoke of a continued creation." To know 
adequately what really happens we ought to see into the 
intervals, but the mathematician sees only the extremities of 
these. He fixes a few results, he dots a curve, he substitutes 
a tracing for a reality. 

This being so undeniably the case, the history of the way 
in which philosophy has dealt with it is curious. The ruling 
tradition in philosophy has always been the Platonic and 
Aristotelian belief that fixity is a nobler and worthier thing 
than change. Reality must be one and inalterable. Concepts, 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON 567 

being themselves fixities, agree best with this fixed nature of 
truth, so that for any knowledge of ours to be quite true it 
must be knowledge by universal concepts rather than by 
particular experiences, for these notoriously are mutable and 
corruptible. This is the tradition known as rationalism in 
philosophy, and what I called intellectualism is only the 
extreme application of it. In spite of sceptics and empiricists, 
in spite of Protagoras, Hume, and James Mill, rationalism has 
never been seriously questioned, for its sharpest critics have 
always had a tender place in their hearts for it, and have 
obeyed some of its mandates. They have not been consistent ; 
they have played fast and loose with the enemy ; and Bergson 
alone has been radical. 

To show what I mean by this, let me contrast his procedure 
with that of some of the transcendentalist philosophers whom 
I have lately mentioned. Coming after Kant, these pique 
themselves on being " critical," on building, in fact, upon Kant's 
" critique " of pure reason. What that critique professed to 
establish was this, that concepts do not apprehend reality, but 
only such appearances as our senses feed out to them. They 
give immutable intellectual forms to these appearances, it is 
true, but reality an sick, from which in ultimate resort the sense- 
appearances have to come, remains for ever unintelligible to our 
intellect. Take motion, for example. Sensibly, motion comes 
in drops, waves, or pulses ; either some actual amount of it, or 
none, being apprehended. This amount is the datum or Gabe 
which reality feeds out to our intellectual faculty ; but our 
intellect makes of it a task or Aufgabe this pun is one of the 
most memorable of Kant's formulas and insists that in every 
pulse of it an infinite number of successive minor pulses shall 
be ascertainable. These minor pulses we can indeed go on to 
ascertain or to compute indefinitely if we have patience ; but 
it would contradict the definition of infinity to suppose the 
endless series of them to have successively counted themselves 
out piecemeal, and got beyond their own serial limit. Zeno 
made this manifest ; so the infinity which our intellect requires 



568 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

of the sense-datum is thus a future rather than a past infinity. 
The structure of the datum must be decomposable by our con- 
ception ad injinitum, but of the steps by which that structure 
actually got composed we know nothing. Our intellect casts, 
in short, no ray of light on the processes by which experiences 
make themselves. 

Kant's monistic successors have in general found the data 
of immediate experience even more antinomic than Kant did. 
Not only the character of infinity involved in the relation of 
the various empirical wholes to their " conditions," but the very 
notion that empirical things should be related to one another 
at all, has seemed to them, when the intellect ualistic fit was 
upon them, full of paradox and contradiction. 

Bergson alone challenges the intellect's theoretic authority 
in principle. He alone denies that logic can tell us what is 
possible or impossible in the world of being or fact ; and he 
does so for reasons which, at the same time that they rule logic 
out from lordship over the whole of life, define a vast sphere 
of influence where its sovereignty is indisputable. Bergson's 
own text, felicitous as it is, is too intricate for quotation, so I 
must use my own inferior words in explaining what I mean. 

In the first place, logic, giving primarily the relations 
between concepts as such, and the relations between natural 
facts only secondarily, or so far as the facts have been already 
identified with concepts and defined by them, must of course 
stand or fall with the conceptual method. But the conceptual 
method is a transformation which the flux of life undergoes at 
our hands in the interests of practice primarily, and only sub- 
ordinately in the interests of theory. We live forward, we 
understand backward, said a Danish writer ; and to understand 
life by concepts is to arrest its movement, cutting it up into 
bits as if with scissors, and immobilising these in our logical 
herbarium, where, comparing them as dried specimens, we can 
ascertain which of them statically includes or excludes which 
other. This treatment supposes life to have already accom- 
plished itself, for the concepts, being so many views taken after 



I 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON 569 

the fact, are retrospective and post-mortem. Nevertheless, we 
can draw conclusions from them and project them into the 
future. We cannot learn from them how life made itself go 
or how it will make itself go ; but, on the supposition that its 
ways of making itself go are unchanging, we can calculate 
what positions it will take, what phases it will exhibit here- 
after under given conditions. We can compute, for instance, 
where Achilles will be, and where the tortoise will be, after 
twenty minutes. Achilles may then be far ahead ; but the 
full detail of how he will have managed to get there our logic 
never gives us we have seen, indeed, that it finds its own 
results self-contradictory. The computations which the other 
sciences make differ in no respect from those of mathematicians 
or mechanics. The concepts, all of them, are dots through 
which, by interpolation or extrapolation, curves are drawn, 
while along the curves other dots are found as consequences. 
The latest refinements of logic dispense with the curves 
altogether, and deal only with the dots and their correspond- 
ences each to each in various collections. The authors of these 
recent improvements tell us expressly that their aim is to 
abolish the last vestiges of intuition, videlicet, of reality, from 
the field of reasoning, which then will operate literally on 
static mental dots or bare abstract units of objectivity and 
on the ways in which they may be grouped. 

In the sense of yielding deeper insight, concepts have thus 
no theoretic value, for they fail wholly to connect us with the 
inner life of the flux or with the real causes that govern its 
direction. Instead of being revealers of reality, they negate 
sensible reality altogether. They make the whole notion of a 
causal influence between finite things incomprehensible. No 
real activities, and indeed no real connections of any kind, can 
obtain ; for to be distinguishable, according to intellectualism, 
is to be incapable of connection. The work begun by Zeno, 
and continued by Hume, Kant, Herbart, Hegel, and Bradley, 
does not stop till sensible reality lies entirely disintegrated, at 
the feet of "reason." 



570 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Of the " absolute " reality which reason proposes to substi- 
tute for sensible reality, I might say more were there space. 
Meanwhile, you see what Professor Bergson means by insisting 
that the function of the intellect is practical rather than 
theoretical. Sensible reality is too concrete for us. To get 
from one point in it to another we have to plough or wade 
through the whole intolerable interval. No detail is spared us ; 
it is as bad as the barbed-wire obstructions at Port Arthur, 
and we grow old in the process. But with our faculty of 
abstracting and fixing concepts we are there in a second, as if 
we controlled a fourth dimension, skipping the intermediaries 
as by a divine winged power, and getting at the exact point 
we require without entanglement with any context. The 
operation is practical because its terminus is particular. The 
sciences in which it triumphs are those of space and matter, 
where the transformations of external things are dealt with. 
To deal with moral facts conceptually we have to use brain- 
diagrams or physical metaphors, treat ideas as atoms, interests 
as mechanical forces, our conscious " selves " as " streams," and 
the like. Paradoxical effect ! as Bergson remarks, if our 
intellectual life were destined to reveal the inner nature of 
reality. One would then suppose that it would then find itself 
most at ease and at home in the domain of intellectual 
realities. But it is precisely there that it finds itself at the end 
of its tether. We know the inner movements of our spirit 
only perceptually. We feel them live in us, but can give no 
distinct account of their elements, nor definitely predict their 
future ; while things that lie along the world of space, things 
of the sort that we handle, are what our intellects cope with 
most successfully. Does not this confirm us in the view that 
the original and still surviving function of our intellectual life 
is to guide us in the practical adaptation of our activities ? 

One can easily gel into a verbal mess at this point, and my 
own experience with " pragmatism " makes me shrink from the 
dangers that lie in the word " practical." Rather than insist 
upon that word, I am quite willing to part company with 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON 571 

Professor Bergson and to ascribe a primarily theoretical 
function to our intellect, provided you simultaneously dis- 
criminate " theoretic " or scientific knowledge from the deeper 
" speculative " knowledge aspired to by most philosophers, 
and concede that theoretic knowledge, which is knowledge 
about things, as distinguished from living contemplation or 
sympathetic acquaintance with them, touches only the outer 
surface of reality. The surface which theoretic knowledge 
covers may indeed be enormous in extent, it may dot the 
whole diameter of space and time with its conceptual creations, 
but it does not penetrate a millimetre into the solid dimension. 
That inner dimension of reality is occupied by the activities 
that keep it going ; but pure intellectualism, speaking through 
Hume, Kant, and Co., finds itself obliged to deny that activities 
have any intelligible existence. What exists for thought, we 
are told, is at most the results that we illusorily ascribe to such 
activities, strung along the surfaces of space and time by laws 
of nature which only state co-existences and successions. 

Thought deals thus solely with surfaces. It can name 
the thickness of reality, but it cannot fathom it, and its 
insufficiency here is essential and permanent, not temporary. 
The only way in which to apprehend reality's thickness is 
either to experience it directly by being a part of reality 
oneself, or to evoke it in imagination by sympathetically 
divining someone else's inner life. But what we thus con- 
cretely experience or divine is very limited in duration, 
whereas abstractly we are able to conceive eternities. Could 
we feel a million years concretely as we now feel a passing 
minute, we should have very little employment for our 
conceptual faculty. We should know the whole period frilly 
at every moment of its passage, whereas we must now con- 
struct it by means of concepts which we project. Direct 
acquaintance and conceptual knowledge are thus comple- 
mentary of each other; each remedies the other's defects. 
If what we care most about be the synoptic treatment of 
phenomena, the massing of the like and the vision of the 



572 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

far, we must follow the conceptual method. But if we are 
more curious about the inner nature of reality or about what 
really makes it go, we must turn our backs upon our winged 
concepts altogether, and bury ourselves in the thickness of 
those passing moments upon the surface of which they only 
occasionally rest and perch. 

Professor Bergson thus inverts the traditional Platonic 
doctrine absolutely. Instead of intellectual knowledge being 
the profounder, he calls it the more superficial. Instead of 
being the only adequate knowledge, it is grossly insufficient, 
its only superiority being the practical one of enabling us to 
make short cuts through experience and thereby to save time. 
The one thing it cannot do is to reveal the inner nature of 
things. Dive back into the flux itself, then, Bergson tells 
us, if you wish to know reality that flux which Platonism, 
in its strange belief that only the immutable is excellent, 
has always spurned. Turn your face towards sensation, that 
flesh-bound thing which rationalism has always loaded with 
abuse. This, you see, is exactly the opposite remedy from 
that of looking forward into the absolute, which our idealistic 
contemporaries prescribe. It violates our mental habits, 
being a kind of passive inward listening or auscultation, 
quite contrary to that effort to react outwardly and verbally 
on everything, which is our usual intellectual pose. 

What, then, are the peculiar features in the perceptual 
flux which the conceptual translation so fatally leaves out ? 

When we conceptualise, we cut out and fix and exclude 
everything but what we have fixed. A concept means a that- 
and-no-other. Conceptually, time excludes space; motion 
and rest exclude each other ; approach excludes contact ; 
presence excludes absence ; unity excludes plurality ; inde- 
pendence excludes liability ; " mine " excludes " yours " ; this 
relation excludes that relation and so on indefinitely ; 
whereas in the real concrete sensible flux of life experiences 
compenetrate each other, so that it is not easy to know just 
what is absolutely excluded. Past and future, for example, 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON 573 

conceptually separated by the cut to which we give the name 
of present, are to some extent, however brief, co-present with 
each other throughout experience, the only present ever 
realised concretely being the " passing " moment in which the 
dying rearward of time and its dawning future for ever mix 
their lights. Say " now," and it was even while you say it. 

It is just intellectualism's attempt to substitute static cuts 
for units of experienced duration that makes real motion so 
unintelligible. The living reality Achilles is only the name of 
a certain phenomenon of impetus, as the tortoise is of another, 
and asks no leave of logic. The velocity of his acts is an 
indivisible nature in them like the expansive tension in a 
spring compressed. The spaces and times in which he 
inwardly lives are probably as different as his velocity from 
the same things in the tortoise. The motion of Achilles 
carries space, time, and conquest over the inferior creature's 
motion indivisibly in it. He perceives nothing, while running, 
of the mathematician's homogeneous time and space, of the 
infinite cuts in both, or of their order. End and beginning 
fall in one for him, and all he actually experiences is that in 
the midst of a certain effort of his the rival is in point of 
fact outstript. 

What to the majority of readers will probably make this 
account seem muddiest confusion is that it presents, as if 
they were dissolved in each other, a lot of differents which 
retrospective conception breaks life's flow by keeping apart. 
But are not differents actually dissolved in each other? 
Hasn't every bit of experience its quality, its duration, its 
extension, its intensity, its urgency, its clearness, and many 
aspects besides, no one of which can exist in the isolation in 
which our verbalised logic keeps it? They exist only 
durcheinder. Reality always is, in M. Bergson's phrase, an 
endosmosis or conflux of the same with the different. They 
compenetrate and telescope. For conceptual logic, the same 
is nothing but the same, and all sames with a third thing are 
the same with each other. Not so in concrete experience. 



574 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Two spots on our skin, each of which feels the same as a third 
spot, when touched along with it, are felt as different from 
each other. Two tones, neither by itself distinguishable from 
a third tone, are perfectly distinct from each other. The whole 
process of life is due to life's violation of our logical axioms. 

The great clash of intellectualist logic with sensible experience 
is where the experience is of influence exerted. Intellectualism 
denies that finite things can act on each other, for all things 
once translated into concepts remain shut up to themselves. 
To act on anything means to get into it somehow ; but that 
would mean to get out of one's self and be one's other, which 
for intellectualism is self-contradictory, etc. Meanwhile, each 
of us actually is his own other to that extent, livingly knowing 
how to perform the trick which logic tells us can't be done. 
My thoughts animate and actuate this very body which you 
see and hear, and thereby influence your thoughts. The 
dynamic current somehow does get from me to you, however 
numerous the intermediary conductors may have to be. 
Distinctions may be insulators in logic as much as they like, 
but in life distinct things can and do commune together. 

These scanty indications will perhaps suffice to put you 
at the Bergsonian point of view. The immediate feeling of 
life solves the problems which so baffled our conceptual 
intelligence. " How can what is manifold be one ? How 
can things get out of themselves ? how be their own others ? 
How be both distinct and connected ? How can they act 
on one another ? How be for others and yet for themselves ? 
How be absent and present at once ? " The intellect asks 
these questions much as we might ask how anything can 
both separate and unite, or how sounds can grow more alike 
by continuing to grow more different. If you already know 
space sensibly you can answer the former question by pointing 
to any interval in it, long or short ; if you know the musical 
scale you can answer the latter by sounding any octave ; 
but you must know these answers as sensations. Similarly 
Bergson answers the intellectualist conundrums by pointing 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON 575 

back to our finite sensational experiences and saying, " Lo, even 
thus, even so, are these other problems solved livingly." 

When you have broken the reality into concepts you 
never can reconstruct it in its wholeness. Out of no amount 
of discreteness can you manufacture the concrete. But place 
yourself at a bound, or " d'embleV' as M. Bergson says, in 
the living thickness of the real, and all the abstractions and 
distinctions are given into your hand : you can now make the 
intellectualist substitutions to your heart's content. Instal 
yourself in phenomenal movement, for example, and velocity, 
succession, dates, positions, and innumerable other things are 
given you in the bargain. But with only an abstract succes- 
sion of dates and positions you can never patch up movement 
itself. It slips through their intervals and is lost. 

So it is with every concrete thing, however complicated. 
Our intellectual handling of it is a retrospective patchwork, a 
post-mortem dissection, and can follow any order we find best. 
We can make the thing seem self-contradictory whenever we 
wish to. But place yourself at the point of view of the thing's 
interior doing and all these back-looking and conflicting con- 
ceptions lie harmoniously in your hand. Get at the expanding 
centre of a human character, the vital impetus of a man, as 
Bergson calls it, by living sympathy, and at a stroke you see 
how it makes those who see it from without interpret it in 
such diverse ways. It is something that breaks alternately 
into both honesty and dishonesty, courage and cowardice, 
stupidity and insight, at the touch of varying circumstances, 
and you feel exactly why and how it does this, and 
never seek to identify it stably with any of these single 
abstractions. Only your intellectualist does that, and you 
also feel why he does it. 

Place yourself similarly at the centre of a man's philosophic 
vision and you understand at once all the different things it 
makes him write or say. Keep outside, use your post-mortem 
method, try to build the philosophy up out of the single 
phrases, taking first one and then another and trying to make 



576 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

them fit together and construct the vision, and of course you 
fail. You crawl over the thing like a myopic ant over a 
building, tumbling into every microscopic crack or fissure, 
finding nothing but inconsistencies, and never suspecting that 
a centre exists. I hope that some of the philosophers among 
my readers may occasionally have had something different 
from this type of criticism applied to their own works ! 

What really exists is not things made but things in the 
making. Once made, they are dead, and an infinite number 
of conceptual decompositions can be used to define them. 
But put yourself in the making by a stroke of intuitive 
sympathy with the thing, and the whole range of possible 
decompositions coming at once into your possession, you are 
no longer troubled with the question which of them is the 
more absolutely true. Reality falls in passing into conceptual 
analysis ; it mounts in living its own undivided life. It buds 
and burgeons, changes and creates. Once adopt the move- 
ment of this life, and you know what Bergson calls the 
devenir reel by which all things evolve and grow. Philosophy 
should seek this kind of living acquaintance with the move- 
ment of things, not follow science in vainly patching together 
fragments of the movement's dead results. 

Thus much of M. Bergson's philosophy is sufficient for my 
present purpose, so I will leave unnoticed all its other con- 
stituent features, original and interesting though they be. 
Doubtless some readers will think that his remanding us to 
the sensation life in this wise is only a regress, a return to that 
ultra-crude empiricism which our idealists since Green have 
buried ten times over. I confess that it is indeed a return to 
empiricism, but I think that the return in such accomplished 
shape only proves the latter 's immortal truth. What won't 
stay buried must have some genuine life. Am Anfang war 
die That ; fact is a first , to which all our conceptual handling 
comes as an inadequate second, never its full equivalent. 
When I read recent transcendentalist literature I must 
partly except my colleague Royce ! T get nothing but a sort 






THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON 577 

of marking of time, champing of jaws, pawing of the ground, 
and resettling into the same attitude, like a weary horse in a 
stall with an empty manger. It is but turning over the same 
few threadbare categories, bringing the same objections, arid 
urging the same answers and solutions, with never a new fact 
or a new horizon coming into sight. But open Bergson, and 
new horizons open on every page you read. It is like the 
breath of the morning and the song of birds. It tells of reality 
itself, instead of reiterating what dusty- minded professors have 
written about what other previous professors have thought. 
Nothing in Bergson is shop-worn or at second hand. 

That he gives us no closed-in system, will of course be 
fatal to him in intellectualist eyes. He only evokes and 
invites ; but he first annuls the intellectualist veto, so that we 
now join step with reality with a philosophical conscience never 
thoroughly set free before. As a French disciple of his well 
expresses it : " Bergson claims of us first of all a certain inner 
catastrophe, and not everyone is capable of such a logical 
revolution. But those who have once found themselves 
flexible enough for the execution of such a psychological 
change of front, discover somehow that they can never return 
again to their ancient attitude of mind. They are now 
Bergsonians, and possess the principal thoughts of the master 
all at once. They have understood in the fashion in which 
one loves, they have caught the whole melody and can there- 
after admire at their leisure the originality, the fecundity, and 
the imaginative genius with which its author develops, trans- 
poses, and varies in a thousand ways, by the orchestration of 
his style and dialectic, the original theme." 1 

This, scant as it is, is all that I can say about Bergson in 
this article, but I hope it may suffice to send some of my 
readers to his original text. 

WILLIAM JAMES. 

Gaston Rageot, Revue Philosophique, vol. Ixiv. p. 85 (July 1907). 
VOL. VII. No. 8. 37 



THE SOCIAL CONSCIENCE OF THE 
FUTURE. 1 

II. THE NEW RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
Miss VIDA SCUDDER. 

V. 

Now we come to the crucial question. Is this moral trans- 
formation on which we so perpetually dwell actual ? 

It is going on under our eyes. It is the modern miracle. 
This article is written, not to preach but to interpret not 
to urge a far duty, but to reveal a present process. 

True, the process is carried on against tremendous odds. 
Let us glance back at them a moment. Here, to begin with, 
is that instinctive hatred of restraint which we have seen to 
pervade the interior life in modern society the profound, 
subtle, and deliberate practice of self-indulgence in its finer 
and more dangerous forms which has captured our education 
and our religion, and is fighting hard to capture our domestic 
ethics. Next comes the fact that socialism in its present 
militant phase does itself engender to a great extent that 
very spirit of egotism and revolt which will be fatal to the 
socialist state when it arrives. Remember, finally, that we 
have seen that the virtues which can alone maintain the 
socialist state are discouraged rather than fostered by the 
present order some of the most important being discounten- 
anced as mere passports to social failure : and it becomes 

1 Continued from the January issue, 1 909. 
578 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 579 

evident that to prepare the soul of man for the New Society 
is a task as difficult as it is glorious. 

It is the task that lies before our generation ; and in the 
depths of life, individual and corporate, it is even now being 
achieved. 

But just at this point confession is in order. Should any 
orthodox socialist happen upon these pages, he will dismiss 
them with a shrug. And the sacred teachings of Marx ? 
Economic determinism ? The class-war and class-conscious- 
ness ? The self-assertion of the proletariat as the only means 
of progress, and the general worthlessness to social advance 
of the altruistic or sentimental factor ? 

As to some of these implications, one must simply deny 
them. The will and purpose of men have played their part 
among other more automatic forces at every stage of progress. 
And the struggle of the awakened proletariat for their rights 
has always been supplemented by some sympathy in the hearts 
of the privileged. 

But as for the class-war, it is a fact, and a stern one. It 
smoulders in every factory ; it flares out in every instance of 
extortion and oppression We perceive it in the cruel and 
vile distrust of the poor which is all too often encountered 
among the privileged ; it is seen no less in the rising indigna- 
tion and bitterness of the workers. Strikes, lockouts, boycotts, 
injunctions, are its ominous weapons. In skirmishes now and 
again, red blood has been shed. Class is pitted against class, 
and the ranks are closing. 

Will this guerilla warfare lead on to revolution? We 
cannot know. The Christian churches, perhaps, hold the 
key to that situation. We trust that so cruel a failure of 
the American ideal need not be visited upon us : we shall do 
all we can to spell our revolution without the R. But the 
event is on the knees of the gods. And if Kropotkine's saying, 
that revolutionary crises are a necessary phase of evolution, 
is to find example once more, and the Christian peoples should 
prove stupid and blind enough to fling themselves into civic 



580 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

strife, we may expect the socialists to fight as bravely as 
gravely. For their cause is sacred to them : most sacred of 
all causes that have ever called for heroes and patriots, since 
it is the cause of universal freedom. 

Now it is obvious that under these circumstances, socialist 
morals must for the present be largely militant. The Marxian 
will tell you that non-resistance, fraternity, the spirit of 
service, are all very well for the future : they shall be the fair 
children of the civilisation to be. But the virtues begotten of 
the present are the virtues of the battle-field, and the true 
socialist to-day is soldier, not peacemaker. 

Yet the greatest soldiers have been also great lovers of 
peace. And what must be asserted against claptrap, even if 
that claptrap be talked in the name of Marx, is that the 
socialist movement in Europe is disinterested in its aim. No 
sensible socialist expects a personal gain from his creed, or 
looks for the absolute triumph of his cause in his own life- 
time. The socialist leaders are neither demagogues nor 
anarchists, impelled by the desire to snatch privilege for 
themselves. They are men so able that if they chose to leave 
the proletariat ranks they could easily make their way to 
personal success along accredited lines. What socialist parties 
seek is not, as they patiently and constantly explain, the 
transfer of privilege : it is the abolition of privilege. 

Hate and rage enough are in the movement. Discontent 
and vague revolt fester in it poisonously. But these are 
simply the scum ; the good brew is below. If socialists were 
not a little ashamed to appear as good as they are, they could 
win the world much faster. As for class-consciousness, it is 
not in itself an evil thing. The consciousness of the group 
has been from tribal days a chief form of moral education. 
Class feeling is not the last ideal ; but we may question whether 
it is not at least as ennobling as family feeling, and whether 
loyalty to a class may not well be as glorious a thing as 
loyalty to a nation. In a way it is finer, in proportion as it 
is more comprehensive, and overcomes more deep-seated 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 581 

antagonisms of religion and of race. Modern class-conscious- 
ness will probably be recognised in the future as the most 
widely ennobling form of group-consciousness evolved up to 
this point in the history of the race: this, at least, is the 
conclusion forced upon the dispassionate observer who watches 
the force actually at work, whether in socialism or in the 
trades-union movement. It is a long step toward that perfect 
loyalty to the Whole which Royce of Harvard proclaims to 
be the mother of all the virtues. 

But of course this loyalty to the Whole is the end of our 
aspiration, though under real stress it is to be feared that few 
indeed of us achieve it positively and fully. This further 
passion for all humanity is not denied to socialism even in its 
most militant phases. The people are rallying to this banner, 
whether consciously or not, for the sake of all men. If they 
work for the emancipation of one class, that class comprises 
the majority ; and they believe that with its salvation will 
come the salvation of all. They fight the battles of the 
oppressed in part for the sake of the oppressor, aware that 
rich as well as poor are to-day so fast in prison that they 
cannot get out. 

Marx devoted his high powers to a brilliant and only in 
part fallacious analysis of inexorable economic forces. The 
time has come to recognise the correlative play of intelligence 
and will, and to acknowledge that the spirit which demands 
fair play and a fair chance for all is the conscious inspiration 
of the socialist movement. Sacrifice is at the heart of its 
revolt : its motives are disinterested as those of Italian 
patriots in the Risorgimento, or of combatants on either side 
in the American civil war. Many traits at present developed 
in the movement are, it is true, militant : some must be dis- 
carded, as we have seen, before the movement can be purified, 
and others are likely to impede rather than to help the 
civilisation for which they call. Yet among these militant 
virtues there are many that have enduring value and are not 
far from the virtues of peace. The drill of the soldier in 



582 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

watchful patience, in submission, in alertness, in the power of 
collective action, is good preparation for the citizen to be. 

And as for that more general preparation of spirit with 
which we have been more specially concerned, who can doubt 
the penetrating quality of the forces at work ? The quick 
and sensitive ear hears the beat of a new music, to which men 
begin to rally. It is a concerted harmony, no mere solitary 
bugle-call ; and those who march to it are more or less con- 
sciously swayed by a new rhythm. For it is notable that the 
rhythms of life are coming more and more to connote 
harmony rather than melody, or rather to weave many 
melodic phrasings into one complex whole. Association or, 
to use the fairer word, fellowship becomes a term of in- 
creasing modern cogency. There are still those who rebel 
against organised and concerted effort, and prefer to shape life 
and work so far as may be in isolation. But they are a 
minority : most people gravitate more and more into groups, 
whether the end be intellectual pleasure, religious experience, 
or social service. Within that infinitely varied consciousness, 
the nation, are forming varied voluntary fellowships centres 
of common life, the hope and promise of the democracy. 
This immense development of organisations is no mechanical 
fact : it is a spiritual necessity. Whether or no they prefigure 
such forms of voluntary co-operation as shall control some day 
the social and industrial order, they have at all events a pro- 
phetic significance, for they bear witness to the craving among 
us for a high development of free associated life. 

A surprising number of such organisations concern them- 
selves with distinctly " social " activities. Preoccupation with 
the general well-being is swiftly growing from sporadic senti- 
ment to sustaining motive. Oh, the battle is not won yet ! 
When the Pan-Anglican Congress was planning, the authori- 
ties, after the manner of authorities, had omitted all provision 
for discussing the social aspects of Christianity. The pertin- 
acity of one man forced the reference of the matter to the 
dioceses. So overwhelming a demand came back for discus- 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 583 

sion on these lines that it was given a leading place on the 
programme, and threw every other interest at the Congress 
into the shade. Read the declaration, again, of a body of 
American ministers of all denominations : 

" We believe that the present social system, based as it is 
on the sin of covetousness, makes the ethical life as inculcated 
by religion impracticable, and should give place to a social 
system founded on the Golden Rule and the royal law of the 
Kingdom of God, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself/ 
which, realised under the co-operative commonwealth, will 
create an environment favourable to the practice of religious 
life." 

Note the extraordinary growth of philanthropic effort and 
its swift enlightenment, so that where twenty-five years ago it 
was content with the ambulance work of caring for society's 
victims, it is to-day attacking causes and pleading for recon- 
struction, and announces officially at a quarter-centennial in 
New York that the feasible task before the coming generation 
is the elimination of poverty and the limitation of disease. 
But there is scant need to dwell on formal utterances or 
activities. Talk with your friends ; look into your own heart. 
Is not the social compunction which you find astir there shot 
through with strange flashes and pulses of hope ? Do you not 
at least know that if the prospect of release from the great 
burden of communal misery and social sin could be effectively 
offered, a large proportion of plain men and women would leap 
to that prospect more eagerly than to any prospect of personal 
gain ? Noting these things, who can doubt that a new spirit 
is born into the world, and that socialism, should it come, 
would come as no alien yoke but as the satisfaction of deep 
desire? The ideal on which Christianity has been insisting 
against heavy odds for well-nigh two thousand years, now in 
the fulness of time, aided by the mature powers of democracy, 
has a chance such as history never before presented of being 
partially realised on earth. He who denies the possibility, 
denies democracy and Christianity alike. 



584 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

VI. 

But there is a more personal point of view, and a more 
intimate preparation is called for. " Let your conversation 
be in heaven," says the Apostle quaintly meaning, by con- 
versation, your relations with your fellow-men. How have 
our conversation in the heaven of fellowship and goodwill 
while we play our parts in a world where most men are 
eagerly bent on self-advancement ? How live in celestial 
places while our feet tread the modern streets ? To learn how 
is a task involving no small degree of self-restraint, initiative, 
and endurance ; it is of those hidden tasks, involving unseen 
martyrdoms, by which the world is saved. 

For the fulfilment of it we have no original virtues to pro- 
pound. The attitude in which we must be training ourselves 
is extremely ancient : we have no new code to offer, only a 
new incentive. But it is an incentive that should help the 
race to a great moral revival. Thank God, those other- 
regarding virtues which will make men harmonious and 
contented citizens of the socialist state are among us even 
now, making the modern wilderness to blossom as the rose. 
But it is a wilderness still, adorned only with occasional and 
ineffectual blossoms, and so it must remain, so long as the 
virtues that make for self-protection have in the main the 
right of way. If, however, we are confidently looking to the 
hour when the practice of brotherly love, self-forgetfulness, 
and unworldliness shall establish rather than threaten social 
stability, if ours is the hope to change the wilderness into a 
garden, are we not strengthened in our inner disciplines here 
and now? To be humble and loving through a passion for 
moral beauty and for inward peace is much. But we can add 
to-day to these motives, springing from the ineradicable logic 
of the heart, another and a broader. " For their sakes I 
sanctify myself," said the Lord Christ, and reconciled in the 
phrase for ever the rival claims of spiritual self-culture and of 
social service. Is not the way being made plain for the race 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 585 

to use the great Word more clearly than ever before as a lantern 
unto its feet ? By the exercise of the deepest and most personal 
virtues we shall be doing more than save our own souls and 
lighten the burden of life for individuals near to us ; we shall 
be preparing the world for a new freedom. Let us develop in 
ourselves that loss of self in the general life which is poverty 
of spirit ; that noble sorrow over the sufferings of the world 
which will lead to the world's consolation ; that indifference 
to self-advancement which is Evangelical meekness, and which 
shall in the new day literally inherit the earth. Let us 
hunger and thirst as the Vulgate translation has it after 
justice. Let us practise mercy, purity of heart, and that 
positive passion of the peacemaker which, far from being 
passive, is truly the master-passion that must evolve from 
the present the world we long to see. If we do all this, we 
shall indeed in all certainty inherit the last beatitude, and be 
persecuted for righteousness' sake ; but we shall also be 
hastening the day when these virtues will be the natural soul 
and the impelling motive-power of the social and economic 
organism of the new society. 

And now, in conclusion, let us indulge in a little foresight. 
Let us try to look somewhat more deeply into the moral life 
of the possible future. What are some of the things likely 
to happen to character under socialism ? 

This is really the final consideration. For there is nothing 
beautiful or interesting or valuable in the world to compare 
for a moment with the people in it. To eliminate poverty 
would not be in the least worth doing unless we were going 
by this means to get a more delightful human race. 

Well, there is no use in mixing socialism up with the 
millennium. We are safe in contradicting people who feel that 
we depict it as a sort of Fra Angelico paradise, very pretty 
but devoid of shadows. On the contrary, there may very 
likely be more real wickedness in the socialist state than we 
have to-day : quite enough, in any case, to avoid moral 
monotony and to give zest to life ! But one hopes that there 



586 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

will be less moral confusion than at present. We have 
seen that many paradoxes that now render our pursuit of 
virtue languid may be cleared away. And evil impulses may 
flourish all the more lustily on this very account. Greed and 
self-seeking, for instance, are not likely to be in the least 
eliminated when they are put in their true relation to the 
life of the social organism, and are commonly recognised to be 
destructive rather than productive powers. At first, indeed, 
they may be strengthened, and we may have a fine crop of 
new hypocrisies, for which a corporate management of industry, 
whether through Government or through voluntary co-opera- 
tion, will afford rich opportunity. The dishonest man will be 
more aware than to-day that he is offending the conscience of 
the race : his practices will be more secretive, his evasions 
more ingenious ; and in proportion as he sins against light will 
his sin react more deeply on his character. As the modern 
thug is worse than that gallant lover of the poor, good Robin 
Hood, so will the embezzler of the future be worse than his 
brother who runs to Canada to-day. 

One foresees a countless number of new perils and new 
emphases. To touch on one only, the fate of purity in the 
socialist state is a great question. Quite possibly it may have 
a harder struggle to maintain itself than it does even to-day. 
The reaction from individualism may bring here a curious 
result. Theories of free love have of course absolutely nothing 
to do with economic socialism, in spite of a foolish confusion 
of thought in some quarters : nevertheless, one foresees that, 
as the idea of the sacredness of property shrinks and dwindles, 
one inferior and adventitious support to the monogamic mar- 
riage may be withdrawn. If purity as the Christian world 
understands it is to hold its own, it must do so through the 
development of that social instinct which recoils from sinning 
against love, and through that ready submission to discipline 
and restraint which should be instinctive to the new citizen, 
and should help him in every department of life and morals to 
a temperate and chaste existence. 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 587 

Sloth, too, one may grant, will threaten for a time to be 
more or less wide-spread. If the socialist state should come 
swiftly, say in the days of our children, a certain indolence 
may well be contagious, in reaction from the fearful nervous 
strain of our own day. And perhaps there will always be 
inert people who furnish reluctantly their daily stint of work, 
evade it when they can, and sink back shall we say, on the 
Bridge of the future? A leisure class would be no new 
phenomenon : and socialism would probably tend to check it 
more than the present system does. But, after all, we do not 
know how matters will work out. There will be, one trusts, a 
more vigorous race in the course of a few generations a race 
in which the average workman will not die worn out, as he does 
to-day, at fifty. This race, freed from the exhausting dominion 
of fear of want, will be endowed with more healthful nerve 
and muscle. Great incentives will be at play on it : the 
primal zest of activity keen in every sound living thing, desire 
for honour, creative joy, and the newly stressed happiness 
in service. Ambition, debarred from accumulating riches, 
will find new and better fields for its gratification. When one 
sees the effort that the young sons of privilege who have a 
reasonably good physique put to-day into sports and mountain- 
climbing, one may well give over worrying about incentives to 
energy and industry in the coming race. 

As for the virtues, some ingenious people are anxious lest 
they should in the future have no field for exercise : 

" Mercy would be no more, 
If there were nobody poor ; 
And pity no more would be 
If all were as happy as we. 
And mutual fear brings peace : 
Misery's increase 
Are mercy, pity, peace." 

So reflected that most sardonic of mystics, William Blake, 
and the little outburst captures agreement. Certainly, com- 
passion, that fair flower of Christianity, all but unknown to 
the pagan world, furnishes to-day a dominant religious motive. 



588 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

With people who have eyes and hearts, an intolerable pity 
threatens to become a prevalent mood. It will be wonderful 
to have this great burden lifted from us ; no longer to dwell, 
in the summers, with the aching consciousness of the tenement 
populations ; of the massed workers in factories ; of the dying 
throngs of consumptives, feebly gasping life away ; of the 
thousands of children to whom the heritage of childhood is 
denied. When the stifling thought of these things no longer 
haunts our days, is it possible that a certain recklessness, a 
hardening of hearts, a general indifferentism, will follow ? 
Will tenderness languish as well-being spreads ? 

It may be so in some quarters. But it may also be that 
the cessation of more obvious demands on compassion will, 
with choice natures, simply clear the way for a finer exercise of 
the virtue. Even now, we have some tenderness to spare for 
immaterial sorrows ; nor does poverty itself appeal solely on 
the score of material sufferings. " It is not because of his toils 
that 1 lament for the poor," wrote Carlyle, indignantly, in 
1830 ; " but what I do grieve over is that the lamp of his soul 
should go out." If poverty should cease, there will be plenty 
of troubles left for us to grieve over! All the bereavements 
of life its inevitable separations its thwarted affections 
the struggle of the spirit forever seeking God and forever 
finding Him in part only the very pain of finiteness all 
these will continue to stab human nature with pangs as keen 
as those which wound it now ; still make of men fit objects of 
compassion, calling forth every effort to enlighten, to console, 
and to heal. New pains, doubtless, will also be born of new 
conditions, just as many of the more inward griefs that haunt 
the modern poets would have seemed mere tissue of dreams 
to a contemporary of Vergil. We may hope that tenderness 
may become more sensitive as the cruder demands upon it fail. 
As the race grows more comely, each lapse from personal 
beauty will be more keenly felt, and quicken more eager love 
and pity. To-day, hunger for rest possesses the majority ; 
it will be hunger to create in those better days to be ; and 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 589 

since opportunities are to be at least roughly equal, and men 
will undoubtedly remain unequal, the need of humility on the 
part of those who cannot achieve anything effective in the 
freedom left from their appointed toil will be matched by the 
delicacies of respectful pity with which they will be regarded 
by those who are blessed with the great gift of creative power. 
One hopes, at least, that this pity will always remain re- 

jtful, but sees here chance for subtle temptations on both 
sides. The responsibility for failure can always be thrown 
back to-day by a man's own mind on his conditions. This 
form of consolation in the socialist state will be at least some- 
what modified. Deeper self-knowledge and a clearing up of 
the confusions that obscure real values will apparently be 
among the products of the new order ; and men will have to 
carry on, under new and more searching conditions, the never- 
ending battle against self-contempt and self-conceit. No, 
there will be no lapse in opportunities for compassion; the 
infinite pathos of man's existence, as he shivers between two 
eternities, will become plainer and plainer when the accidental 
and the preventable have been partly eliminated from his lot. 

Compassion, after all, is only the Latin form of the word 
sympathy : a fact touchingly suggestive of the ancient con- 
viction that to feel with a fellow-mortal is to grieve with 
him. And sympathy is to be the very keystone of the 
virtues in the socialist state. One even foresees new moral 
perils involved in its great probable development. To main- 
tain a clear vision of an ideal of perfection and an inexorable 
personal standard, while identifying oneself with myriad 
types of thought and feeling never to let tolerance slip 
into indifferentism all this may be harder than it is to-day. 
But who would not take this risk for the sake of the 
deepening and liberation of the intuition of the larger life ? 
The very intuition will bring its own salutary discipline. 
It will force us to cultivate brotherly affection without 
bounds ; to condemn self-indulgence in anything that separ- 
ates us from our fellow-men; to practise gentle courtesy 



590 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

and loving-kindness with the irascible, the stupid, and the 
ugly. But, on the other hand, it will know a rich reward ; 
for " elective affinities " in the wider sense will have freer 
play than they have ever known. We have only a faint 
foretaste now of what fellowship may mean in the en- 
franchised world when those class-barriers that now, in 
spite of the American fetish of equality, impede intercourse 
at a thousand points, are gone for good. We are too 
used to these barriers to realise their effects ; but we have 
only to picture to ourselves a world in which all share in 
some respects the same class-tradition, and where the same 
types of education are open to all, to perceive in how wide 
a range and with what entirely unhampered naturalness 
the seeking spirit will find its own. Men will feel and act 
together with a spontaneity to-day unknown ; voluntary 
co-operation, already, as we have seen, one of the marked 
signs of the new era, will assume an importance hardly to 
be imagined, scientists, philosophers, artists, lovers of golf 
forgathering with a new delightful ease and freedom. In 
public and in private life alike, a quite unlimited joy will be 
found in the divers kinds of fragrances yielded by divers kinds 
of fellowship varied as those exhaled from a summer garden. 
The longer one thinks, the more clearly one sees how 
many " virtues of delight," like sympathy, are to-day half- 
suffocated and inhibited from developing themselves in free- 
dom. May not the new life release them, and restore them 
to us, as it were, in the body of the Resurrection ? Loyalty 
will play a close second to sympathy, for fellowship can never 
thoroughly realise itself until loyalty has a constraining power. 
Generosity, debarred from showing itself through money doles, 
will find a truer and more difficult scope in sharing, sometimes 
at cost of distasteful choices, the gifts and graces of the per- 
sonal life. Hospitality will become a less material, more 
spiritual quality, leading men to open their hearts as well as 
their homes to those temperamentally repugnant as well as to 
the congenial. The spirit of service will be potently at work 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 591 

in every department of life, from one's work for daily bread 
to the last detail of personal intercourse. Manners, the fine 
flower of morals, ought to be very charming in the socialist 
state the natural expression of the instincts of the socialised 
man. Manners, when sincere, are habitually bad to-day, 
because we are constantly afraid that somebody is going to 
tread on our toes. When we are free from this dread, and 
no longer have to be absorbed in making our own way in a 
word, when we have shaped the economic structure more 
rationally we may hope to become a more gracious race. 
And so one might go on, showing how one fine impulse after 
another might have freer scope than it does now. Even 
voluntary poverty, that virtue unpopular to-day, partly because 
we so feel the curse of her step-sister, may once more charm 
the ear. One can imagine religious orders refusing to profit 
by that assured comfort which will be open to all men, but 
living as austerely as the companions of St Francis for the 
sake of a clearer vision of the unsubstantial good. 

VII. 

And what of Spirituality ? Will it wane and perish ? 
Will a refined materialism, a satisfying and passionate " love 
of the very skin and surface of this fair earth on which we 
dwell," as William Morris puts it, replace all longing for a 
better country in those fortunate citizens of the future to 
whom the world shall be indeed the " Alma Parens " of our 
dreams ? 

Here, too, one foresees subtle perils, old temptations endued 
with a new power. When the whips and scorpions which have 
driven man Godward through the ages Want, Fear, and 
Slavery cease their cruel work, it may well be that he will 
be tempted to abide no longer as a pilgrim, but as a lord, 
feasting fat and full, and joyous in the present, till the Eternal 
fades from his earth-bound vision. 

But if the temptation is great, the opportunity will be 
great also. 



592 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

For religion, like ethics, languishes to-day in bondage. 
The one imperative necessity of putting an end to the 
infamous and unchristian conditions in which the masses of 
men are living, and of achieving a decent degree of human 
justice, absorbs more and more the most devout instincts of 
the human heart. The socialists, by whom the love of man is 
usually assumed to be the sum-total of religion, have against 
the Churches the just and constant grievance that the followers 
of the great Physician and great Revolutionist take no lead in 
the struggle for emancipation. 

They are cruelly right : 

' * A hi Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre 
Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote 
Che da te prese il primo ricco patre ! " 

Even without echoing Dante's cry, or reverting to the 
fourth century, we must at least recognise that the Church 
made an all but fatal blunder in the revolutionary period, 
when she turned away distrustful from the new forces of 
democracy and allied herself with the old regime of privilege. 
Bitterly she expiates her sin : there is no greater tragedy in 
Europe to-day than the antagonism between socialism and 
Catholicism which divides the most ardent and religious spirits 
into two hostile camps, when they should be united in a 
common pilgrimage. Yet when we look at the Anglo-Saxon 
world, we perceive another aspect. Whether or not on 
enlightened lines, the English Churches are increasingly con- 
cerned with ministration to the great mass of human misery. 
Preaching tends more and more to pure humanitarianism, 
often feeble enough; institutional work directed to the 
restoration or maintenance of social health claims all the 
energies of the faithful ; and we can hardly wonder if a cry 
arises in some quarters that the Churches themselves are losing 
their supreme interest in the things of the Spirit, and devoting 
themselves exclusively to social ethics. There is truth in the 
charge. Such intense interest in purely spiritual problems as 
has marked the great religious ages would be hard to find 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 593 

among us. And perhaps it ought to be hard to find. Who 
could to-day honour the mystic who in a great modern city 
should shut his ears to the cries of the oppressed, and dedicate 
himself to the pursuit of a metaphysical light, or the solitary 
practice of the presence of a heartless God ! St Teresa is 
organising settlements instead of convents. St Catherine of 
Genoa is head of a training-school for nurses, which leaves 
her scant leisure for ecstasies of " Pure Love." The social 
situation forces materialism on us all, if by materialism is 
meant a primary and troubled pre-occupation with the bodily 
and social needs of the human race. 

Yet all the time we are aware that there is more to 
religion than this. No thinker was ever satisfied with the 
description of St James. To do justly and to love mercy is 
all very well, but how about walking humbly with one's 
God ? Detachment, recollection, impassioned union with the 
Eternal, are no mere delusions of the childhood of the race, 
fading with the advancing day : they are the deepest necessity 
of humanity's manhood. Already a reaction is in order ; the 
quest after the ultimate meaning of this mysterious life of 
ours revives on every hand. Strange mysticisms, turning 
often to the East, rise and thrive where modern materialism 
is hottest. Philosophy presses eagerly on its lonely way 
toward new aspects of idealism. Speculative movements, 
pathetically wild, but all the more significant, bear their 
witness to the inextinguishable thirst of the human soul for 
some immediate contact with the Unseen. 

Now, to a world feverishly rebelling against the materialism 
that binds it, the social democracy would come with high mes- 
sage of relief. It would give the longed-for conditions under 
which spirituality once more could thrive. That command of 
the Master, " Take no thought for the morrow," which to-day 
saddens or almost angers the heart by its impracticability, 
could be literally followed in a social order where the in- 
dividual life carried on its fruitful activities, sustained instead 
of thwarted by the life around it ; a heart and mind at leisure 

Vox, VII. No. 3. 88 



594 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

for higher interests would be the happy outcome. The 
Churches, free from that ignominious duty to serve tables 
which they can only escape to-day by denying their Lord ; 
the philosophers, breathing a clearer air than ours ; plain men 
and women, finding the problems of earth less urgently in- 
sistent, might quite conceivably turn once more to heavenly 
thoughts. 

"The ethics of socialism are the ethics of Christianity," 
says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in a now famous definition. 
We have tried to show how these ethics may have a freer 
and fairer field for their endless struggle to mould humanity 
to a better likeness in the society to be. We hope for a time 
when the paradox that limits our practice of pure Christian 
virtues to private life, and makes that practice even there 
half-hearted, will be done away, and when the great principles 
of the Beatitudes shall become the evident law of social pro- 
gress, as they are now the law of individual holiness. It will 
be much. It will lift the whole moral life of the race to a 
higher level. But it will not be enough. Ethics alone will 
never satisfy the human soul so long as the stars shine overhead. 
When that good future dawns, the distinctively religious life 
shall, we may hope, be restored to us. The ancient interest in 
Theology, noble queen of arts and sciences, will probably be 
renewed ; and who can tell to what new effect the philosophical 
mind of the future will study the great mysteries? At all 
events, the practice of the mystical virtues that centre in 
relation not to our fellow-man, but to God, will have their 
chance, unchecked by social compunction or by the engrossing 
cares of this world. Not that we need fear a lapse into the 
contemplative temper that has rendered the East unprogressi ve : 
the organisation of the socialist state, with its healthful and 
universal law of productive labour, not to speak of the 
temperament of the Western nations, will preclude that 
danger. But a little opportunity to pause for contemplation, 
for prayer, and for thought will not hurt us. Many an 
inspiring reason summons us, each and all, to work, through 



THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE 595 

self -discipline and social and political action, for the co- 
operative civilisation of the future. And the highest reason 
of all, if not the most compelling, is the desire to liberate the 
religious life. The thought is too great to treat with justice 
at the close of a long paper ; we shall return to it in a third 
article. Meantime, it should already be clear that in the 
new order created by the common will we may expect, in 
the true sense, a revival of religion ; a renewed recognition 
that the eternal as well as the temporal has claims upon us ; 
and that it is not forbidden even to our mortality to hold 
converse with the things that, being unseen, abide. Beatrice 
again will take her rightful place, long usurped by Matilda ; 
and we too, gazing into her eyes, may behold the Image of 
the Most High. If there be a God, the socialist state will 
offer Him a better opportunity than we of the Western world 
have ever given Him before to draw the hearts of men 
upward to Himself. 

VIDA D. SCUDDER. 

WKLLESLEY COLLEGE, U.S.A. 



THE INSUFFICIENCY OF SOCIAL 
RIGHTEOUSNESS AS A MORAL IDEAL. 

THE REV. P. T. FORSYTH, D.D., 

Principal of Hackney College. 

THERE are several tendencies in the modern mind which seem 
to converge upon something more objective and central than 
that mind can itself provide. Humanity cannot explain itself. 
It does not carry in itself the chart of its own drift or the key 
of its own destiny. It moves to a point outside itself, to a 
point in God. The Christian creed says this point is in history, 
but not of it. It is the Kingdom of God in the person, and 
especially the cross, of Christ. The crucifixion, of course, is a 
historic fact, like Jesus, but the cross, the Atonement, like the 
Christ, is superhistoric. And it is in this superhistoric con- 
summation the Kingdom in the Cross that many of our 
finest modern aspirations come to unity and rest. 

These features are such as the passion for (1) unity of 
conception ; (2) cosmic range ; (3) social righteousness ; (4) 
mercy, pity, and kindness. 

1. There is no feature that more marks the mind of to-day 
than the craving for unity, and especially for unity of concep- 
tion. It dominates the higher science ; it is at the root of the 
hasty refuge some take in monism. It determines the higher 
churchmanship ; it inspires the search for a real authority. 
And it moulds the higher politics ; it moves in the aspirations 
for brotherhood and the ambitions of democracy. 

2. Nay, the passion for unity rises to a cosmic scale. 

506 



SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS INSUFFICIENT 597 

Under the guidance of modern science we escape from abstract 
universals and we exult in cosmic realities and the cosmic 
imagination. Planetary systems are now more numerous than 
stars were once thought to be. Space not only swells, but its 
distension is organised. And human destiny itself expands in 
proportion. The soul that renounces a historic God is yet 
invited to lose itself in a cosmic emotion or an enthusiasm of 
humanity. The all submerges the God of the all, the all- 
presence the All-Father, or the All-Father the God and Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

3. With this goes the modern passion for righteousness, 
not merely for personal goodness, but for boundless good, for 
social righteousness. The demand grows for a reconstruction, 
a revolution if need be, of the social order in the interest of 
an ideal righteousness of no private interpretation. Public 
justice slowly but surely bears down private interests. It 
emerges more clearly as the dividing line between the two 
great parties. It seizes some people so vehemently that it 
becomes their religion ; and personal religion wanes in con- 
sequence, and, with it, the membership of the churches. 
There was never an age when the passion for public righteous- 
ness covered so many, or promised so much. 

4. Add to this the humanitarian passion for mercy, pity, 
tenderness to the weak, consideration for life or suffering. 
You can get money for hospitals when you can get it for 
nothing else. The children of the community were never so 
cared for, and the young had never such chances. The sub- 
merged have at last emerged. We awake to the valuable 
products that can be extracted by new machinery from the 
wastage and wreckage of society. We have the politics of 
pity, or at least of sympathy threatening at times even to 
swamp the politics of justice and the sanity of law. There is, 
of course, much that points the other way still, but there 
never was so much pointing that way the way of mercy, pity, 
and love. 

Take such features, then, as these alone the passion for 



598 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

a unity or a centre, the passion for righteousness, especially 
social righteousness, the passion of sympathy or pity, and the 
passion which moves to conceive of such things on a cosmic 
scale. And then consider, on the other hand, the increased 
confusion in life, the loss of a centre of unity, the disagreement 
about righteousness, the inadequacy of philanthropy, the sense 
of oppression by the vastitude of the cosmos. Take all the 
moral confusion and the soul-schism which lead first to 
deliberate yet passionate pessimism in the midst of our 
conquest of the world, and then to the settled despair which 
multiplies suicide. It is an age of very great spiritual derange- 
ment and moral dissolution, in spite of its spiritual instincts 
and ethical ardours. And to this confusion is offered by the 
Church the threefold unity of the cross the holy love and 
grace of God, the saving judgment on sin, and the new 
Humanity. My interpretation is that those great groping 
lines of social tendency I named above draw together to this 
point, which history alone does not provide, nor mere 
humanity explain. They find their focus in God's act of 
Christ's cross where they not only meet and blend, but where 
they are fused and vitalised for a new future in the one 
burning centre of man and the world and God. The cosmic 
passion (2) of a merciful (4) justice (3) at the heart of the whole 
world (1) is realised only in the cross as the crowning act of a 
holy and gracious God a God holy because he is the whole 
goodness of existence, and gracious because of the merciful 
love with which he goes out to save us into his own holiness. 

Of these t would discuss here but (3) arid (4). 

There is no issue so vital to human society as righteousness. 
A society rises in the scale in proportion as righteousness is 
felt to be central and supreme. The right of the stronger 
may indeed be curbed by a social order which secures a balance 
of interests ; but a mere balance of interests is too mechanical 
to be the law of a society essentially moral ; and as we ascend 
the scale we mark the growth of this one interest over all the 
rest the ubiquity and prevalence of righteousness. It is the 



SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS INSUFFICIENT 599 

interest which is above all others humane and ethical. It 
deals with an ideal, and it makes it a reality for the conscience. 
And what it hears in the conscience is the social voice. 
Morality, for the modern thinker, is at least the total demand 
of the social will. It may be more, but it is that at least. It 
is a voice to the individual indeed, but a voice with a social 
word and a public note. The most hopeful thing in modern 
life is the growth of this ethical note, the progress of the 
passion for righteousness, and the elevation of the idea beyond 
individual integrity to social justice. The idea of righteous- 
ness carries us up from the mere decent man, through the 
upright man, to the truly social man ; from the goodness of 
a man to the righteousness of a community ; nay, beyond that, 
to a universal community thus just and right. But do we stop 
there ? Surely all these still mean obedience to a law, a power, 
a standard, an authority. What of that power and authority 
itself? Where is the moral authority which is its own 
authority ? Where is the goodness that is self-fed, self-ruled, 
self-moved, self-sufficing on an infinite scale ? Where is the 
conscience that accounts for itself, and swears by itself because 
there is none greater ? Are we not planted before the ineffable 
presence of one who is for ever fed from within with all the 
moral strength he needs, and is therefore the centre and foun- 
tain of the universe the changeless, self-sustained, absolute, 
and Holy One ? Is not the Holy God the heart of things and 
the head of things the eternal good, central, self-poised, un- 
shaken amid the millions of souls that lift to him their eye, 
their need, their cry, their trust or their hate, as his holiness 
goes out in love ? Would entire faith be possible without that 
eternal and holy goodness, changeless behind all the love we 
trust ? A love that could change we might love, but we could 
not trust it, however intense. It is the absolute holiness within 
love that is the ground of such trust in it as makes religion. 
It is this holiness that enables us to meet the love of God with 
faith, and not merely with gladness ; to trust it for ever, and 
not only welcome it at a time. And the Christian plea is that 



600 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that eternal holiness is nowhere secured and satisfied but in the 
sinless cross, which is therefore at the centre of life and things. 

Our thought must take that line and that flight. In our 
pursuit of unity we expand from social justice to cosmic law, 
and pass from man's relation to man up to his relation to the 
universe ; and so we are driven to its God. There may or there 
may not be other inhabited worlds than this, or other intelli- 
gences than man's ; but surely the whole righteousness of the 
universe is not exhausted in human justice. Were the whole 
race organised to the completest social justice and kindness, 
surely, till it was in due communion with His holiness, it would 
still be something less than the fulness of the whole order and 
counsel of the universe. It would be unjust to God still. Un- 
less, indeed, the race be the God. Unless our Grand Eire be 
Humanity, and there be no perfection beyond the unity of the 
race in love, order, and progress. But is there not a righteous- 
ness which is as much more than social as social is more than 
individual ? The doctrine of the Trinity rose from the soul to 
say there is. Is there not a holiness as far above the stage of 
justice as justice is above integrity ? Is cosmic not something 
more even than social ? And righteousness, equally cosmic, 
social, and personal what can it be but absolute holiness, 
righteousness as vast as a cosmos which science shows us to be 
infinite, and as social as the personal relations within a triune 
God? 

This is a singular thing to me. We are in an age which 
teems with cosmic science, expands with cosmic ideals, and 
glows with cosmic emotion. That on the one hand. On 
the other hand, it is an age that thrills to the ethical ideal 
and the social passion of righteousness. How is it that for the 
holiness of a universal, triune, and therefore social, God there 
should be, even among the religious, so many that are either in- 
different or shy. I have even found hostility. It is strange 
that there should be such borne, not to say vulgar, aversion for 
the theologian. He is simply an ethicist on a more than 
cosmic scale, upon the authority of the cross. He is the rational 






SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS INSUFFICIENT 601 

expositor of a cosmic righteousness revealed as the infinite 
holiness. He faces, he inhabits, a world of moral realities whose 
action is perfectly sure and infrangible, which is not mocked, 
and whose laws in their kind are no more to be defied 
with impunity than those of Nature ; for God spared not 
his own Son. " The real and eternal dignity of Humanity is 
so bound up with this cosmic order of holiness that man would 
be diviner if he were broken maintaining its honour, than if 
his mere existence were secured by ignoring it." That is the 
world of an absolute holiness. To the theologian the absolute 
holiness of God stands for the like capital to that which the 
physicist finds in the uniformity of nature. Press, therefore, 
the centrality of righteousness, and social righteousness, on the 
one hand. Rise to the cosmic range of thought on the other. 
The more you do both, as our age does, so much the more 
central for the cosmos, for universal existence, for all reality, 
must be the absolute righteous reality i.e. the Holy God, 
the Holy Trinity ; and the more stable and unsparing must 
be both his demand and his deed. These meet in the cross. 
If in his deed he spares not his own Son it is because the 
welfare of the universe is bound up, above all else, with 
the unsparing nature of his holy, loving law, whereof that 
willing Son is the historic witness, warranty, and " coefficient 
Creator." 

From another point of view, I do not find it quite easy to 
understand how it should be that many noble champions of a 
social righteousness can sit down under such an arrest of 
thought as they accept. Or is it an arrest of moral experience, 
all the more surprising in so much moral enthusiasm ? Your 
passion for public righteousness or social justice, I would crave 
leave to say to them, you nourish as a universal ideal. And 
more. Your conflict is sustained by the vision of an ideal 
which is not merely sesthetic ; that is, it is not duly met by 
contemplation alone. But it is ethical and practical. It 
descends upon you with the force of a demand. Your moral 
ideal does not simply exist to be beautiful in some corner, or 



602 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

even in some central spot, like a marble dream in some salon 
carre of the world's Louvre. But it descends on you out of 
heaven from God, or what for you is God. It comes to you 
with no mere spectacular effect, but with compelling power. 
It lays its demand upon you to translate it into effect. 
It makes you not its amateurs but its organs and champions. 
It lies and presses upon your conscience, and not merely your 
imagination. It makes you sacrifice. Now your imagination 
of righteousness is not only so large as to be cosmic, but it 
is exigent, piercing, and pervasive in proportion. The breadth 
and the height and the depth of it are equal. The more lofty 
the righteousness is, and the more universal, so much the more 
subtle, searching, and exacting it must be. Can you have a 
telescopic infinity which is not microscopic as well ? Can you 
think of a moral ideal for the whole world which is not urgent 
also on each whole soul ? You feel the exigent, revolutionary 
demand of this general and eternal righteousness on society ; 
you feel the mockery that current society offers to that ideal. 
How is it that you do not search as freely as you sacrifice ? 
How is it that, with your passion for moral thoroughness, it 
does not search and abash your own conscience more than 
appears? How, if it be so imperative for society, does it 
find so much that is impervious in you ? (I speak but of 
what you allow to appear.) The society it tries to its base 
includes you as a moral monad. How are you so sceptical 
about its inquisition of you, so stoical in the self-respect 
of your apostolate, or so reticent about any humiliating or 
shattering visitations of you, however rare ? Your aposto- 
late of that unearthly righteousness is most convinced, sincere, 
and earnest. How do you escape the guilt, the fear, the 
repentance of it ? Whither has moral fear gone from the 
cultured world ? Does the moral power only deal with 
social affairs, with a collective responsibility ? How does 
your ethical sensibility react at wrongs but fail at sins ? Have 
you none ? Or no light that throws them up as sins, and 
burns and brands them into you ? How is it that your 



SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS INSUFFICIENT 603 

indignation shows so little trace of reacting and deepening 
into humiliation ? The parable you take up against society in 
the name of public righteousness, how is it that you are not 
driven to turn it upon yourself? (Do forgive me, but there is 
no discharge in this war, and men must press each other hard 
here.) Are you really able to face your own conscience, your 
own moral memory, or your race's, with the same confidence 
as that with which you confront the egotists and capitalists 
who keep man from his social paradise ? Does the moral 
analysis you apply to rend them never turn upon you with 
so much the more deadly subtlety as your standard is higher 
than theirs, and as you are better able to read yourself than 
them ? How is it that the demand of entire social righteous- 
ness upon society fails to become the demand of complete, 
infinite holiness upon it and you? Is the moral world less than 
absolute and eternal and penetrating, unsparing, accordingly ? 
You are so worthily exigent, 1 do not understand why you 
are not more so ; why, as you are so uncompromising, you 
are not more thorough ; why your ethic is not co-extensive 
with your deep personality, why it is not a positive personal 
religion as it is a social theory for you ; why, as you are 
undoubtedly modest, you have never gone on to humility ; 
and why, with that modest sense of un worthiness, you do not 
feel yourself damnable, if only as a member of a solidary race 
which, if there be condemnation at all, is under a collective and 
inclusive condemnation. 

Can it be that your moral standard, high and wide as it is, 
needs still to be truly universalised by theology of a practical 
kind ? You have a high ideal, which you insist on laying upon 
all souls. Your motto is " Thorough." Do you not need (do 
forgive me if I am thorough too) one more high, more subtle, 
more comprehensive, more uncompromising, more holy, which 
will force its way into your whole soul, even to the rending of 
it, it may be ? Your large moral world needs to rise heaven- 
ward in its ethical note till it break into a spiritual world whose 
height and depth and breadth are equal a world as thorough 



604 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

in its spiritual penetration as it is in its moral exigence. 
Does your moral ideal pierce as much as it presses ? Are its 
eyes as fiery as its wings ? Would it not press much harder if 
it pierced much more? Does it search as powerfully as it 
urges ? Has it power as it has weight and worth ? Does your 
ideal of righteousness not need, ere it can master the soul, to 
become the ideal of a holiness before which you cannot stand ? 
Is righteousness finally possible for society till holiness gets 
its own ? 

You are too engrossed with the soul's conduct instead of 
the soul's quality. Your society would be but a mosaic of 
souls instead of a body of Christ. You would change men 
without changing the inmost heart, change conduct and rela- 
tions without changing life. You would increase men's power 
of will without altering their style of will. But " the supreme 
ethic," says Weinel, " is not, like other ideals, beyond our 
power in its height, so much as it is beyond our own will in its 
nature." You are working on the level of the self-respecting 
moral gentleman, of the admirable English university pro- 
duct, who is in a position to live comfortably and finely on his 
moral means, absorb spiritual ideas, and ignore spiritual powers 
as if they were no nearer than London neighbours. But the 
moral issue of the world is fought in a far more inward region 
than that, and it turns on a far more inward crisis. " There 
are no rentiers in the moral life." And the battle-field of 
Christianity is not the clean and solvent soul of the moral 
rentier, the moral gentleman, but it is the moral bankrupt. 
There are far more of these than the refined English gentle- 
man or lady knows, far more than writers on social subjects 
know, far more than is realised by those who handle the final 
moral issue with no other equipment than liberal thought and 
current culture. The moral crisis of society is in a region 
which you may know little of. You are bred, perhaps, in the 
sober, unbitten, and untragic atmosphere of intellectual West 
Ends, where evil is a study and not a curse. You have never 
felt the bottom drop out of your own soul, the ground give 



SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS INSUFFICIENT 605 

way beneath your own moral nature, while flying voices scream 
that Macbeth has murdered sleep. You are masters of current 
ethic, but dilettanti of the moral soul. You have never had 
the experience which would give you intimate knowledge of 
the life that lies outside your ordered ways and kindly sets. 
You know no more than to say that a tragic repentance is 
rare now, and the sense of sin being outgrown, or that there 
are few people who live in actual personal relation with Jesus 
Christ, or are governed by his will. Why, there is not a section 
of the Church, and certainly of the Free Churches, that could 
not show them in thousands. You have not the experience of 
the priest in the confessional, or the trusted pastor in his inter- 
course with his flock. I would go a long way round to avoid 
offending you, but how can any detour prevent me from saying 
that, high, wide, and fine as your moral range is, you lack 
some experience of men, and some moral sensibility at spiritual 
pitch ? You respond to a supreme good, but you do not to 
the Holy of Holies. Your supreme good is but in the 
making. Your righteousness far exceeds Scribe or Pharisee, 
but you do not rise to thorough self-judgment ; nor from 
that to the consciousness of the perfectly holy Self that 
judges even your judgment of yourself. A few even outdo 
my audacity with you in a kind of intellectual levity with us. 
They venture to lecture the theologians, with an ill-veiled 
contempt for their methods, if not always for their beliefs. 
They lecture them both on their spirit and their subject, with- 
out giving any indication that they have studied, in a scientific 
way, either a book of the New Testament or a single meta- 
physical master, or a single theological classic. Nay, they have 
been known to propound a theology publicly, giving clear 
indication that to them epistemology is a foreign country, 
moral philosophy an unknown region, and ethical ideas quite 
tractable with a cosmic calculus. But I willingly admit few 
have this confidence. And they cannot well be treated on 
my present line. They treat the problems of metaphysic 
with a mere hypophysic, and wield a calculus of the subliminal 



606 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

rather than the absolute, one more appropriate to the powers 
of an abyss than to the eternal and living God. 

What lies incumbent on society for you (if I have your 
leave to return to you) is a law of righteousness. Yes, but 
what is it that lies incumbent, urgent, searching upon you 
for society, nay, for the sake of the power which is above 
society ? Society is a collective and impersonal entity, and a 
law is all very well for that. But the soul is no mere 
impersonal entity. And the power that should rule it is 
no mere moral order, and no scheme of righteousness, and no 
Church nor society. It must be another soul, the righteous 
source of rights and home of duties, self-sufficing in its 
righteousness, a soul absolutely holy, and holy unto infinite 
love. Would it not be possible to gain the whole world for 
righteousness and lose our own soul ? If you say that that is 
absurd, that to lose the soul in such altruism is to find it, I 
suggest that the supreme Teacher of that doctrine spoke only of 
losing the soul "for my sake and the gospel's." And might I 
further remind you that, by the most enlightened and modern 
interpretation, that peril was the essence of the temptation 
of Christ himself? His tremendous sense of moral power pre- 
sented to him the possibility of conquering a social righteous- 
ness in man for God on lines which ignored the holy will of 
God in the cross. What might he not have done for a 
reformed society, by a Cromwellian empire with an Ironside 
army, or by such service of man as made the regeneration 
of Faust ? But where would his own soul have been then, 
in the face of his calling of God, whose grace to him was to 
make him taste death for every man? There are things 
which we may not sacrifice to the most promising and 
beneficent of social causes. Neither men nor women may 
unsex their soul for any dream or phase of the Righteous- 
ness of God. But why should they not if social effect, as 
they see it, be all ? 

Over all your judgment of yourself or your society in 
righteousness is the judgment of your righteousness by the 



SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS INSUFFICIENT 607 

holiness of God. And practically that is the holiness 1 of God 
in Christ. But you present me, perhaps, with two difficulties. 
First, that you find the divine love in the mind of the Christ 
of the Gospels, but not the divine holiness ; for he does not 
speak of it. And second, that criticism has so reduced our 
data that it is very little we can say about the consciousness 
of Christ. But are we, then, come to this, that we cannot 
speak with any force of conviction about Christ as the first 
moral figure of history ? You will not go so far as that, 
perhaps. But if he be the first, is Humanity such a poor thing, 
in even its most eminent, that he has been unable to prevent 
his choicest followers for two thousand years from a moral 
blunder so great as that of finding in him the very incarnation 
of the holiness of God, and in his cross its supreme and 
complete assertion ? They have not preached him as the 
world prophet of social righteousness ; they have persisted in 
finding him the incarnation of God's holiness ; and they have 
made his effect on social righteousness to depend on that. 
Have they made a tremendous moral mistake ? Was idolatry 
of himself the chief legacy of our greatest man to posterity ? 

I have in my venturous mind not the popular dilettanti of 
a social reformation upon ethical lines, but earnest and accom- 
plished students of the matter. And yet I must make bold 
to say reluctantly, and with great respect, that their obsession 
by the theological antipathy has made them such victims of 
theology (by its negation), and has so narrowed their mind 
thereby, that they have never taken due measure of Christ 
as a moral fact, still less as a moral factor in history. They 
have indeed been interested in the historical Christ, and 
they have owned the spell of his character in the procession 
of prophets. Carlyle did, for instance. But they have not dealt 
as seriously with the moral meaning of the fact as with its moral 

1 Perhaps I ought to have been explicit before now that by holiness is not 
meant anything so abstract or subjective as mystical absorption, but the whole 
concrete righteousness of existence, self-sustained at white heat. For our 
God is a consuming fire. 



608 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

effect, or its aesthetic or historical aspect. They have never 
integrated him into the moral philosophy of history, into the 
grand moral psychology, into the spiritual organism of the 
race as theology has at least tried to do. The historic or 
the ethical sense will carry a man far. But it will not carry 
him as far as the person of Christ takes him, if he give to 
that path a mind unstunted by scientific methods, or un- 
stupefied by religious sentiment. You cannot treat Christ 
adequately by the historic sense, psychic research, cosmic 
emotion, the canons of natural ethic, or tender affection. 
The only adequate treatment of a fact so unique as Christ 
is the treatment proper to the moral nature of such a fact, the 
treatment it elicits and inspires, the treatment to which, in 
the first disciples, we owe anything that we know about him, 
the treatment by faith. You must trust him ere he seem 
worthy of your trust. He is really God only to the faith 
which has confessed him as Saviour. His incarnation is an 
evangelical and not a logical, not a metaphysical, demand. The 
Church's views about his person were forced upon those whom 
he not only impressed but regenerated, forced on them by the 
logic of living faith poring on the new creation that had passed 
them from death into life. It was only the scientific forms of 
these views that were affected by the philosophy of the hour, 
which did not, and cannot, give the certainty of their sub- 
stance. It was a real redemption that Athanasius sought to 
secure by the metaphysical Trinity. And the experienced 
verdict (and not merely the orthodox deposit) of his living 
Church in history is, that Christ is the incarnate holiness of 
the world and of Eternity ; that he is no mere part of past 
history, but of the race's total life; and no mere starting-point 
for the ideal, but the living object of each age's absolute faith. 
To trust him is not a leap in the dark, but it is a venture 
none the less. It is a venture of courage and not of despair, 
of insight and not of bewilderment. In an age like this 
the greatest moral courage lies, not in challenging faith, as 
the crude public believes, which believes in little more than 



SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS INSUFFICIENT 609 

pluck. That is cheap heroism now. But true courage lies 
in pursuing, amid the dulness of the public, the triviality 
of the pious, the desolations of criticism, the assaults of foes, 
and the treason of friends, such faith as places the precious 
soul, the wondrous age, and the cosmic world for ever and 
ever in those hands which twenty centuries ago were nailed 
for our advantage to the bitter cross. To do that with 
open eyes to-day is a very great achievement of the soul, 
a very great venture of faith, and a very great exercise of 
moral courage of the silent and neglected sort. The world 
knows nothing of its debt to those who for the soul's sake 
are incessantly facing and laying the spectres of the mind. 

If, now, we turn from the passion for unity, which carries us 
from a soul to a world, and from a world to the cosmic soul 
of God ; or from the passion for universal righteousness, 
which carries us up to the supreme and holy judgment upon 
the cross ; if we turn to the passion of human kindness, we are 
borne on, with the same high compulsion, to the Grace in the 
cross. The love of Christ constrains it. 

The effective sympathy of man for man has historically 
sprung from the grace and pity of God. I say the effective 
sympathy. The Stoics had a fine humanism which spread to 
include the whole race; but it was only in idea. It could 
not translate itself into action. Its finest representative was 
the severest of persecutors I mean Marcus Aurelius. The 
real and active philanthropy of men has sprung from 
" the philanthropy of God." If you say it has taken long to 
grow, 1 remind you of the practical and popular benevolence 
of the first Christian centuries, and the silent beneficence and 
pity that make the sweetest note in the long history of the 
Church so much of it unsweet. Appropriating, correcting, 
and hallowing the humanism of the eighteenth century, 
capitalising it, so to say, by rooting it in God, this Christian 
humanism took, in the nineteenth, a new lease of life. And 
it has now come to a point of strain where it must draw 
deeply upon the inspirations of grace if it is to survive 

VOL. VII. No. 3. 39 



610 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the disillusions that await a democracy merely human, and 
a socialism chiefly concerned with rights and comfort. The 
rights of man are but revolutionary and sterile without the 
grace of God. As in France and America, they do not 
make brotherhood, so much as a negative, borne, and prickly 
liberty. The love of man for man owes more to the grace 
of the cross than to any other influence. And no other 
influence can keep it alive or preserve it from futile senti- 
ment. Those who see most of men, who have most intimately 
and practically to do with them, and who therefore see 
shrewdly into the average man, are not among the great 
lovers of men. Nor are we ourselves sometimes, when the 
strain of their contradiction grows tense, till we come out of 
the holy place where we met with God's love. When the 
capitalist stops his charities because his property is threatened 
by legislation we learn how short in the fibre is the charity 
which is not founded on the love and pity of God. The real 
test of the love of man does not come till we love our enemies. 
The love of our enemy is only the love of our neighbour true 
to itself through everything. For an employer to love the 
strikers that have ruined his business after a long and bitter 
war is not in nature. Yet that is the kind of tax to which the 
love of man is at last exposed. And there is only one source 
in the world to feed it and keep it alive which is God's love 
of his bitter enemies, and his grace to them in repaying their 
wrong by Himself atoning for them on the cross. Central to 
all our humane kindness at last is the grace of the cross. The 
grand human strike against God would ruin both the workers 
and the Master did he not, in his love's tremendous resource, 
find means over their heads to save both his cause and theirs 
out of the wreck. 

Human misery is too great for the human power of pity. 
No heart but that of holy God is equal to inviting into it all 
that labour and are heavy laden, to pitying on an adequate 
scale the awful tragedy of man, or measuring man's suffering 
with that informed sympathy which is the condition of healing 



SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS INSUFFICIENT 611 

it. None can pity our human case to saving purpose but a 
God who treats it with more holy grace even than heart pity, 
and who is stronger to save our conscience even than he is 
quick to feel our wounds. Our suffering can only be finally 
dealt with by him who is more concerned about our sin ; who 
is strong enough to resist pity till grief has done its gracious 
work even in his Son ; and who can endure not only to see 
the world's suffering go on for its moral ends, but to take its 
agony upon his own heart and feel it as even the victims do 
not, for the holy purpose, final blessing, and the far victory of 
his love. And this is what we have in the atoning cross of 
Christ. On the world scale we have it there alone. And the 
grace of the cross is as central to our human compassion as its 
judgment is to our public righteousness. The greatest human 
need is not only holy love but holy love. 

This ethical, cosmic, eternal estimate of Christ cannot be 
based on his biography alone, or chiefly, but upon his cross, as 
we shall again find when we have surmounted the present 
fertile obsession by "the historical Jesus." Such an estimate 
is a judgment of value, a confession of faith, nay, a personal 
self-assignment. It is impossible to treat Christ adequately, 
except theologically and personally. Personally, for it is the 
theologian's hard and high fate to cast himself into the flame 
he tends, and be drawn into its consuming fire. And theologi- 
cally, for we find the key of Christ's life in his work, find his 
work to be the cross, and find the cross to be God's atonement 
of Himself, and the world, and especially of our own soul, 
once for all. The spiritual interpretation of Christ centres in 
the cross ; and in the cross as a sacrifice offered by God more 
than to God, but to God more than to men. It is offered to 
the holiness of God before it is offered to the service of men. 
To both, indeed, but in that order. It is certainly not simply 
the classic case of man's service of man. That gives us a 
broad Christian but not a full Christ. And nothing but the 
fulness of Christ can maintain our breadth or replenish empty 
churches. To banish the Atonement from the creative centre 



612 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of Christianity is in the long-run so to attenuate Christ 
as to dismiss him from Christianity, and condemn him to 
be outgrown. As it was the cross that universalised Chris- 
tianity, so also it is the cross that is the permanent, creative, 
and extensive thing in it. All its faith, theology, and ethic 
are created and organised from the evangelical centre there. 
And this divine atonement to infinite holiness through loving 
judgment is the only thing that can really appeal at last 
to the heart of the modern passion for righteousness when* 
it is thorough with itself a passion which is so much more 
deep than its own consciousness goes. We avoid this 
centre only by our plentiful lack of moral wit, by the lack 
of evangelical experience, or of intellectual thoroughness, 
or moral sequacity. Can we really think of righteousness 
without judgment, of a universal righteousness without a uni- 
versal judgment whether you put it in the pictorial shape of a 
last great assize or not ? Must that judgment not arraign every 
soul ? You cannot think (unless you fall to thinking of justice 
as mere utilitarian arrangement) of a universal righteousness 
which is not founded upon righteousness eternal and absolute, 
i.e. upon divine holiness. Can you think, then, of universal 
judgment except as the relation to that holiness of every soul ? 
And not only of every soul, but of the whole soul ranged before 
the whole God and the holy God? Could a personal soul 
be judged by a mere historic process ? Does it not call for 
a personal God ? And if there be any religious protagonist 
of the race I own I tax you, and I am sorry, but it has taxed 
me more must he not stand vicariously before the judgment 
of that God, and take home that Love under the moral 
conditions of a righteousness so universal and a holiness so 
absolute ? This is what (in the Church's faith) Christ did, and 
did once for all. It is the supreme service he rendered to social 
righteousness, and consequently to eternal if we could but for 
an hour get far enough away from social problems to take their 
measure and proportion, feel their foregone solution, and so 
find rest and power for our souls. All this lifts Christ far 






SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS INSUFFICIENT 613 



above the level of a historic figure. A mere historic, station- 
ary Christ is but a transitory Christ which is a paradox. 
But you cannot tell the truth about the cross without the 
lie of a paradox. A Christ who stood fixed only at a point 
in history would be, by his very fixture, a transitory Christ, 
because but a temporary, because he would be outgrown 
and passed by the moving race. A Christ merely ideal, 
stationed at a fixed point on earth but magnified to an ideal 
upon the clouds, would become a Brockengespenst. He 
would be a mirage whose very grandeur and purity would 
shame us far more than help us. And he would shimmer 
before us like an aurora, when we needed to be warmed and 
reared by a perennial sun. 

The new passion for righteousness must end upward in a 
new sense of judgment ; and especially among the religious, 
if their ethic is to grow more delicate and penetrating as 
well as more urgent. Social righteousness unaccompanied by 
moral delicacy and penetration could easily become another 
phase of Pharisaism. Love without holiness lends itself but 
too easily to dissimulation, to unreality. But to give God's 
judgment its due place in public righteousness is to raise ethic 
to religion, righteousness to holiness, and to make some kind 
of Atonement inseparable from real faith on any social scale, 
and certainly on the social scale of a Church transcending 
and outstaying all the societies of men. 

What is our social ardour to live on after a few dis- 
illusioning generations ? What moral reserve are we pro- 
viding for the vicissitudes of the great business of history ? 

P. T. FORSYTH. 

LONDON. 



THE OVER-EMPHASIS OF SIN. 
THE REV. ALEXANDER BROWN, 

Minister of St Paul Street Congregational Church, Aberdeen. 

THE Church always has had a grievance, and maybe could 
not exist without one. Within living memory its bete noir 
has been materialistic science, or evolution, the higher 
criticism, or the charm of worldliness ; of late the outcry 
has been against a decadent sense of sin. No longer is it 
true that " the dearest child of faith is miracle " ; it is a 
tearful feeling of sin. It looks as if the official representatives 
of religion would not have been free from alarm had they 
found sin to be a vanishing quantity ; but to discover a visibly 
dying sense of sin, while sin itself is believed to be growing 
more reckless and assertive, makes the situation doubly 
deplorable. The Church is not far out in its diagnosis, 
nor without good reason for alarm. Sin is the permanent 
stock-in-trade of all the churches, the main concern of 
clerical and ministerial functionaries ; and the alarm may 
well be serious, considering the moral interests held to be at 
stake, not to speak of the pecuniary risks of officials who, 
like certain priests in the Bible, may be said to "eat sin 
for bread." It is perfectly evident that people without con- 
sciousness of sin can have no sense of need for a confessional, 
a penance, or a sermon whose intent is to convince them of 
sin against their will. 

The malaria is no longer confined to those outside church 
and chapel. It has spread beyond its natural unbelieving 

614 



THE OVER-EMPHASIS OF SIN 615 

habitat and invaded the ranks of the elect. The virus is 
said to afflict "the present generation," always, of course, 
with the exception of a few who have been inoculated 
against the poison. This is a threatening calamity for all 
who accept Augustine's dictum that the soul of religion is 
"humility." Without a sense of sin, void of self-reproach, 
how is a man to humble himself sufficiently before the 
ordinances of the Church, or before his God ? As a matter 
of fact, he cannot, and he does not. The Sunday assemblies 
are visibly diminishing quantities. In the churches the con- 
gregations still call themselves "miserable sinners" and 
" miserable offenders " ; and in many chapels the preacher 
takes the responsibility of describing his people in such 
accusing terms as poured from the doleful lips of Thomas 
Shepard and Jonathan Edwards. It is an ancient custom 
of the pulpit and a helpless acquiescence of the pew, little 
more can be said for it, perhaps in no age truly voicing, 
and now for obvious reasons out of touch with, the actual 
feelings of the worshippers. 

That there is plenty of transgression of the higher moral 
principles is obvious. In trade and commerce, as in every 
profession, there are many who violate truth and justice, 
and excuse in themselves what they stigmatise as sin or 
crime in others. In every great city there are hoary-headed 
reprobates, young unregenerate dudes, and women who are 
" sinners." But such abnormal personalities have had their 
fling in every age. There is no reason to believe that they are 
more abundant now, or that the community does not as earnestly 
reprobate such lawlessness as in any previous generation, 
though more charitable in judgment and more reticent in speech. 
These moral eccentrics do not constitute Society, nor represent 
its tone. The language which portrays their defalcations is 
not fit to describe the amiable shortcomings, or, at worst, the 
sins of the average Sunday congregation. In every such 
assembly there is much innocence ; perhaps the worst are a 
few who, without the slightest ill intent, have been envious 



616 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of their neighbour, or have bought or sold in the open market 
without much regard to the interest of the corresponding 
party. Everything considered, the mass of a Christian con- 
gregation are about as innocent as men and women can well 
be in a world where natural temptations are so rife, and 
so many social adjustments discountenance heroic saintliness. 
The humiliating confessions that are adequate reprobations of 
deliberate evil in overt and injurious action are a gross ex- 
aggeration and a libel when employed to represent the every- 
day state of the Christian public. There are clergymen who 
presume upon the patience of their congregations, and try to 
browbeat them into the acknowledgment of tremendous sins. 
The other week the son of a late archbishop said in our 
hearing that recently in a small congregation the clergyman 
looked toward him, in ignorance of who he was, and said : 
" You were wondering as you walked up the aisle, Is there a 
greater sinner here than I ? remembering the scarlet procession 
of sins that passed before your mind as you lay upon your 
bed last night." No other profession would take such liberties 
with its clients. In the sermons of Jesus there is no wholesale 
accusation of human nature, though He lived in a most 
decadent age ; men are not catalogued as wholly corrupt or 
void of good, though their particular shortcomings are de- 
nounced ; only one class of offending women are described as 
"sinners." If the Master were counted worthy of imitation, 
the whole trend of clerical thinking and habit of denunciation 
would require to be recast. It is a confession of disastrous 
failure for the successors and representatives of One who came 
" to make an end of sin," to be for ever insisting that even 
lifelong Christians must heartily acknowledge themselves to 
be " miserable sinners," who can never get beyond the habit 
of offending Deity every hour they live. One might rather 
think that the struggle for existence had come to an end by 
the bringing in of perfection. Surely the Church which has 
existed for two thousand years should be able to grow, if not 
saints, at least clean men enough to save it from the humilia- 






THE OVER-EMPHASIS OF SIN 617 

tion of having its entire constituency continually prostrate with 
shamefacedness before a God who is acknowledged to have 
such supreme claims upon His people's loyalty. As it is, by 
theological imputation, the Christian life is neither more nor 
less at the best than a season of sinning and repenting, with 
the enormity now added that the repentance is omitted. 

The present irresponsiveness to the preacher's accusations 
is probably in part a reaction against what is felt to be a 
slanderous exaggeration, but doubtless other causes have been 
at work. Nietzsche says that atheism, when it takes hold of 
a man, gives him a sort of innocence. We have not become 
a nation of atheists, nor perhaps is this infidelity as prevalent 
as when the influence of Huxley and Tyndall was in the 
ascendant, but the whole theological outlook has changed 
immensely. Neither God nor man is the same as they were 
to our grandfathers. We are under a new heaven and in a 
new earth. Evolution has undermined the notion of the race 
having sinned in Adam, and being consequently born in a 
state of inherited corruption. Now, thinkers see the race 
cradled amongst animal entanglements from which it has to 
loose itself, and this natural struggle which in itself is a 
virtue almost by necessity issues in exaggerations and 
mistakes. 

Es irrt der Mensch so lang er strebt, 

and the reason which makes him responsible at the same time 
makes it possible for his mistakes to be the deeper and more 
fatal. Then, there is now a very liberal recognition of the 
forces of heredity and environment. Probably the influence 
of descent is being overrated. The late Dr Barnardo, who 
had unusual facilities for reaching the truth, was led to place 
little weight upon parental habits, and extreme importance 
upon environment ; but the public imagination invests both 
with almost necessitating powers, and there is a consequent 
disposition to look more leniently on human nature's faults 
and failings. There is also the fact that the vast increase 
and general diffusion of wealth during the last sixty years 



618 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

have softened the outlook upon life, and discredited the 
puritanical sentiments of the Evangelical school. It is now 
no sin to live in luxury, and tens of thousands devote Sunday 
to bridge, golf, and motoring, with an occasional appearance 
in their parish church in order to retain some reputation for 
respectability. One change still more radical has taken place : 
The British public has discovered a new Deity. The former 
Supreme, who was all eyes, and wrote down in a book of 
remembrance even our microscopic failings, no longer exists 
except for a few obscurantists who belong to a previous 
generation. On the throne there is a God of love, who 
understands and is more pitiful than the best of fathers. 
"Tout connaitre, c'est tout pardonner" applies to Him. 
Accordingly, men are more kindly in their judgment of each 
other, and more hopeful of themselves. For these and other 
reasons sin, in the proper sense of wilful transgression of a 
known divine command, is not believed to be so omnipresent 
and rancorous as preachers declare it to be, and it does not 
sit like a nightmare on our consciences. The Pew takes a 
kindlier view of human nature than the Pulpit : it has been 
influenced more by the changed outlook of the nineteenth 
century, because not bound so much to conventional con- 
ceptions as a class which is notoriously prone to reverence 
tradition and to hedge behind what is regarded as safe. 

The clergy would do well to consider whether the time is 
not come for them to paint their people's conduct in less 
sombre hues. There are plenty of vile men and women who 
are worthy of scorching words, and who should not be spared 
the whip when they come within its reach. But the common 
life of our Christian communities is not like theirs, and they 
should not be massed as constant sinners, void of good, and 
so hardened that they neither recognise nor feel their sins. 
Let us rather believe that their good far outweighs their ill, 
and that for conscious ills they are penitent enough. Much 
of our existing evil is simply the result of ignorance, and of 
immature, unbalanced natures. We are not born into the 



THE OVER-EMPHASIS OF SIN 619 

world with a guarantee to please. No creature beginning 
life in such a rudimentary state, and with such conflicting 
elements all bound together, to be regulated by one feeble 
will, can well avoid mistakes, and worse. The young find 
themselves moving in a milieu of enticement upon one side 
and repression on the other. 

Thou shalt abstain renounce refrain ! 
Such is the everlasting song 
That in the ears of all men rings, 
That unrelieved, our whole life long, 
Each hour in passing, hoarsely sings. 

This itself is provocative of revolt, and likely to breed the 
resolution that 

All of life for all mankind created 
Shall be within my inmost being tested. 

If we have been educated in the tenets of a severe theology, 
we shall likely take too serious a view of this spirit of adventure ; 
call it, with Amiel, " an enemy to law, bending under no yoke, 
rebellious to reason, to wisdom, and to duty." It may relieve 
our feelings if, with that morbid soul, we call it " sin in our 
very marrow, flowing on like the blood in our veins, and 
mingling in our substance." But if this instinct of independ- 
ence belongs essentially to human nature, is an original creation, 
the design of whatever gods have been at our making, it is 
not our sin. The responsibility of its presence and action does 
not rest with us, nor are we justified in insulting God who 
made us, by repenting of what He has done. We might as 
well repent of the tiger and the snake, the earthquake and 
tempest in nature. If our fundamental or primary experiences 
are sin because they are not idealised or spiritual, they are not 
entirely within our control, and the burden of them must be 
laid upon another will. The shadow which is in man flits over 
the face of the earth, and darkens at times the very heavens. 
Is it sin as it arises initially in human life, and does the Author 
of all carry no responsibility ? Surely there is a suggestion of 
truth and sincerity in the quatrain of the Rubdiydt : 



620 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Oh Thou who man of baser earth didst make, 
And who with Eden didst devise the snake, 
For all the sin wherewith the face of man 

Is blackened, man's forgiveness give and take. 

We offer the suggestion that this penchant for revolt is 
neither an unpardonable sin nor an injury to man on the part 
of God. What is it but the necessary impulse of a budding 
soul which can realise itself only as it is conscious of self-will, 
and tests its powers and its rights in resistance to whatever 
seems inimical to self-realisation ? Human nature is a paradox. 
Man is the world in little and God in little, and these two are 
contrary to each other, and it may even be the God within us, 
and not the beast, that resists dictation. Manhood is grown 
and perfected by beating itself against many walls, some of 
which it overthrows, and against some of which it is sadly 
bruised. A personality with no instinct of resistance against 
imposed authority would never attain to individuality. It 
would be shaped by its nature arid environment, and remain a 
nonentity a mollusc, without moral character. The growing 
man must reach out his tentacles and discover what, and 
what not, are his natural limitations. He has to make sure 
what are legitimate authorities and what are not; and it 
will necessarily be with a grudge that he submits to com- 
mandments that prohibit anything which his soul desires. 
Revolt is naturally awaked whenever he is crossed by a law 
which says " Thou shalt not." The mental life needs initiative 
as much as docility, self-assertion as much as self-surrender, 
the sense of individualty as much as deference, rights as well 
as duties, the assertion of independence as well as obedience. 
The growing youth needs a sufficient measure of insistency to 
give him backbone, and save him from being mere clay under 
the demands made upon him. Character implies that every 
man is what Kant called him an end in himself; and in 
realising his own individuality, he possesses the inalienable right 
of making some blunders of his own. Is he much to blame 
if he tests all outside inhibitions, and wants to know by his own 



THE OVER-EMPHASIS OF SIN 621 

experience whether they forbid him good or evil ? This is the 
natural history of the human creature. The impulsive acts of a 
conscious selfhood are a necessity of his origin and development, 
and therefore he is wronged when, by the deductions of a 
supernatural theology, these native forces of his being are 
branded as sin, and he is told to be ashamed of himself. His 
callow nature and his errors of judgment are not sin, but mis- 
takes to be pointed out for correction. Theology is right in 
affirming that sin is possible only because there is a God, and 
therefore the brand of sinfulness should be limited to acts of 
wrongdoing perpetrated in the face of moral principles which 
are recognised as divine. This limits the amount of sin in any 
human life. One of the hardest tasks set the human mind is 
to realise God, conceive the infinite under the limitations of 
personality, and to identify the conventional morality, often 
confessedly mistaken, with the Divine will. Certainty on 
these points usually has a restrictive influence on disorderly 
self-will. The element of delusion commonly enters into 
actual misconduct ; and where a man violates his conscience 
his sense of wrong is frequently only the echo of a conventional 
judgment, of whose reasonableness and validity he has secret 
doubts. A man may indeed choose to ground all his actions 
on his own self-will, in defiance of all recognised claims, but 
such a moral monstrosity is rarely found. Mephistopheles 
himself is bad because he is " the spirit that denies " ; if he 
could see his way to affirm, he would become a reformed 
character. Every evildoer is to some extent an ignorant fool ; 
and his ignorance, even if blameworthy, is some mitigation of 
his guilt. 

Hence the clamant need for discrimination on the part of 
religious teachers. A congregation of worshippers can contain 
only a small proportion of persons who deliberately violate 
any obligation which they know to be divine. Not one in a 
thousand has " garments spotted by the flesh," and fewer are 
so passion-logged that their evil is greater than their good. 
Human nature is cleaner and more wholesome in its living 



022 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

than preachers appear to suppose. Corellian pictures of 
Society are made crude and tragic for sensational effect. 
Middle-class life is on the whole much saner than the life of 
the upper circles. The average life of our people is certainly 
less intellectual and more tainted with sensuous appetites and 
emotions than one could wish. " Life is not light, but the 
refracted colour." The proper name for the average attain- 
ment may be humbling enough, and we do not care how far 
down the ladder the preachers and editors of religious journals 
may place us. That may be only a question of the loftiness of 
the critic's ideals. Only a bitter and merciless spirit or a 
jaundiced judgment will scarify what, at the worst, is only 
faultiness as sin of a guiltiness that deserves everlasting punish- 
ment. Men will listen more profitably to accusations that 
bear at least the semblance of truth, than to thoughtless ex- 
aggerations which condemn them to undeserved shame. Best 
for preacher and hearer is " the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth." 

ALEXANDER BROWN. 

ABERDEEN. 



THE 

MESSAGE OF MODERN MATHEMATICS 
TO THEOLOGY. 

II 

(Continued from the January issue.) 

CASSIUS J. KEYSER, Ph.D., 

Adrain Professor of Mathematics, Columbia University, New York. 

THE present plight of natural and speculative theology, judged 
by prevailing standards of knowledge, is indeed pathetic. 
With every incentive and opportunity for untold years to 
deepen and purge her doctrines against the approaching trial 
of them in the fierce light of modern science, duly warned that 
the allegiance of scientific men may not be won by any imposing 
array of wayward speculations and vaunting opinion, she 
nevertheless permitted herself to come to the Grand Assize 
unprepared, has there heard the verdict " pretentious, shallow, 
vague, incoherent, unintelligible," and there in the unpitying 
light sits the once proud and hopeful aspirant to permanence of 
spiritual leadership timorous, apologetic, humiliated, impotent, 
even despised. And yet her heart is right. But hope of 
rehabilitation and advancement does not lie in renewing her 
old assertions of superiority over the common ways of reason. 
Those claims have been decisively disallowed, not by the 
wickedness but by the wit, not by the sin but by the sense 
of mankind. No, the hope of Theology lies in the possibility 
of deepening her Thought and purging it of Contradictions. 
Where do those contradictions come from ? They are of 



624 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

two kinds, domestic and imported : contradictions that, in- 
digenous to the soil, spring up within Theology's own domain ; 
and alien contradictions fetched from adjacent fields. They 
are to be overcome by searching in the universe of thought 
till points of view are found from which they are seen to 
disappear. The domestic variety, the manner in which they 
arise, and the way in which they seem to admit of being 
resolved or transcended, may be briefly characterised in the 
abstract as follows, fuller and concreter treatment being 
reserved for a subsequent stage. Denote by B some being, 
some complex entity, the subject or object of thought. Let 
2\ be one theory of B, and T 2 another. Regarded as a 
body of doctrine concerning the nature of B 9 7\, a definite 
basal system of compatible postulates together with a super- 
structure of rigorously deduced implications, is perfectly sound, 
thoroughly coherent, absolutely devoid of inconsistency among 
its component elements ; precisely the same is true of T 2 . 
The two theories, though they have a multitude of pro- 
positions in common, do not coincide, are not in absolute 
agreement : one of the T"s contains at least one proposition 
that contradicts some proposition of the other. B is a multi- 
phased being, regardable from various points of view, each of 
which, once it is found, may seem for a moment, an hour, a day, 
a decade, or a hundred or a thousand years, to command B 
entirely. Seen from the view-point P 19 B appears exactly as 
TI describes it ; from the view-point P 2 , exactly as T 2 describes 
it ; and so on. But the thinker, the student, the investigator 
of B has found neither P l nor P 2 , and consequently has not 
constructed either J\ or T 2 . Searching about, however, in 
the dark, putting forth the antennae of his understanding now 
in this direction and now in that, he at length arrives at a 
position where a great light dawns upon him he has found a 
point of view, P, different from P l and from P 2 but a kind of 
composite of them. Seen from P, B presents both all the 
properties stated by 7\ and all those asserted by T 2 . The 
thinker, finding so much light, attempts to construct a single 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 025 

theory T of B, which, were it possible, would be a union of 
7\ and T 2 ; but possible it is not, for a theory must be a self- 
coherent thing, and 7\ and T 2 , as we have noted, are held 
apart for ever by at least one contradiction. What is to be 
done ? Conquer by division : P must be decomposed into PI 
and P 2 ; 7\ and 7\ must be constructed and retained as two ; 
and both of them held as true. But how thus held, since they 
do not agree ? The answer is : B is once for all and finally 
such a being that 2\ and T 2 are both of them affirmable of it : 
a being to employ for clarity's sake the leanest of possible 
illustrations like a quadratic equation, a? - 4 = 0, of which we 
can affirm that a? = 2 or x = 2 ; not, however, that x = at once 
both 2 and - 2. But look again : the equation is seen to be 
an entity that allows either assertion x = 2, x = 2, and we at 
once transcend the seeming necessity of the alternation, x = 2 
or a? = - 2, by the compound affirmation, 2 and - 2 are roots. 
Just so, perceiving that B is a being, an entity, admitting 
either of the assertion 7\, T z , we seize and express that 
character of B, transcending the alternation 7\ or 7 T 2 , by the 
compound assertion 2\ awe? 7V No trick, this ; but a daily 
procedure of rigorous thought : the familiar bound of the spirit 
from a level of partial dissonance to the commanding bridge of 
an overarching harmony. 

On the other hand, the imported variety of theological con- 
tradictions constitute a radically different class. They are like 
the contradictions that would defeat the ends of justice if, in 
the trial of a case at law, it were assumed and held throughout 
that all witnesses are honest or that none can be mistaken ; or, 
again, like the hopeless confusion that would result to the 
science of hydraulics, did the student adhere to the assumption, 
as universally valid, that water runs downhill : contradictions, 
that is, that are due to importation, into a given thought 
domain, of postulates that, though valid elsewhere, are not 
valid there, but there, mingling with such as are valid, produce 
as if by magic a brood of incompatibilities to confound the 
thinker and darken his field. Herewith Theology is confronted, 

Vpju.VII.--Np. 3,. 40, 



626 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

by the terrific task of weeding her garden of alien postulates. 
The first lesson she has to learn is that the task is extremely 
difficult, that it may be endless, and that nevertheless she 
must enter upon it resolutely on pain of perpetual exclusion 
from the society of Sciences. 

Perhaps the most noxious, certainly the most obvious, of 
Theology's foreign postulates one that has engendered endless 
confusion within her field and brought upon her from without 
no end of ridicule is the hoary assumption that the whole 
is greater than the part. Universal belief in the universal 
validity of that so-called axiom was the greatest calamity that 
ever befell the human race. It stayed the march of rigorous 
thought for thousands of years, and still surrounds the field of 
scientific speculation like a prison wall. The discovery, within 
the last half-hundred years, that the proposition, instead of being 
universally true, is generally false ; the discovery that, instead 
of being an essential principle of reason, pervading the realm 
of reality and binding the whole, it is simply a principle of 
classification, a logical blade sundering the thinkable universe 
into two components ; the discovery that one of these parts- 
called the world of finite things is composed of wholes to 
which the proposition applies without exception ; that, on the 
contrary, the other part called the world of infinites is com- 
posed of wholes for which, without exception, the proposition 
is invalid ; the discovery that the latter world, the world of 
infinites, so far from transcending human reason, is its proper 
domain, readily yields its secrets to the eye of thought, its 
varied content to concept and classification, submits its 
structure to the scalpel of analysis, and its modes of behaviour 
to the law-finding processes of synthesis and generalisation : 
that discovery I judge to be second in importance to no event 
in the history of mankind. And auspicious for Theology will 
be the day when she discovers that Discovery ; learns that her 
subject-matter belongs to a definite world, the world of Trans- 
finite being ; and accordingly relinquishes the ancient dogma 
of whole and part as alien to her fieldL 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 627 

An example or two illustrating the manner of the resulting 
emancipation must here suffice. Only yesterday in a western 
city of my country a great orator, speaking of the doctrine that 
the three persons of the Trinity are each Almighty and yet 
together constitute but one Almighty, of the doctrine that 
each of the Persons is equal to the One composed by all, 
evoked applause from a vast and splendid audience by 
characterising that doctrine as "infinitely absurd." Why? 
Because the speaker and hearers alike tacitly assumed that as 
a matter of course the whole must exceed the part. And why 
does Theology, instead of explaining the difficulty, content 
herself with avowing that the Trinity and the component 
Persons are all of them " incomprehensible " ? Because she, 
too, makes the same assumption. And yet it is not the 
doctrine but the orator's characterisation of it that is 
" infinitely absurd " a fact admitting of mathematical demon- 
stration. I am not here concerned in the slightest degree 
with the question whether the venerable creed is true, but shall 
confine myself to showing that, so far from being " absurd," it 
is rigorously thinkable, and even that it would be so if the One 
it contemplates were asserted to be, instead of a trinity of 
persons, a multiplicity of order 4 or 7 or n. It is plain that 
we have here to do with the structure of infinite manifolds. 
As Bernard Bolzano learned theologian, profound philosopher, 
immortal mathematician pointed out more than fifty years 
ago, " there are points of view from which we perceive in God 
an infinite multiplicity (unendliche Vielheit], and there are no 
other view-points from which we attribute infinity to him." 
" Ich sage nun : wir nennen Gott unendlich, weil wir ihm 
Krafte von mehr als einer Art zugestehen miissen, die eine 
unendliche Grosse besitzen. So miissen wir ihm eine Erkennt- 
nisskraft beilegen. die wahre Allwissenschaft ist, also unend- 
liche Menge von Wahrheiten, weil alle ueberhaupt, umfasst, 
und so weiter." a It is upon the term unendliche Menge, as the 

1 Bolzano, Paradoxien des Unendlichen, pp. 8, 9. This work was begun in 
1847 and finished in the following year, in the last months of the author's life. 



628 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

context clearly shows, that the emphasis falls. Now consider 
for example the following infinite manifolds : the totality E of 
the even integers ; the totality O of odd ones ; the totality F 
of fractions having integers for their terms ; and the manifold 
M of the rational numbers, M being composed of all of the 
elements of E and O and F. As any child knows, E and O 
are equally rich in constituents, the fact being writ on the 
very surface of the eye. It is also a fact familiar in the 
modern doctrine of Real Numbers and capable of being 
acquired even by a freshman in thirty minutes that the number 
of elements in M is precisely the same as the number of those 
composing E or O or F. Denote the number of elements in 
E by a. Then a = the number of elements in E = the number 
of elements in O = the number of elements in F = the number 
of elements in M. What, then, is the situation ? Simply 
this : we have here three infinite manifolds, E, O, F, no two 
of which have a single element in common, yet the three 
together constituting one manifold M that is exactly equal in 
wealth of elements to each of its infinite components. Indeed, 
mathematicians know that M involves, not merely three, but 
infinitely many manifolds each equal to M precisely. Why 
should such truth surprise or mystify? For the world of 
transfinite being the home of Mathesis, and of Theology too, 
if she only knew it is filled with just such truth, not seen 
darkly as through a glass, but face to face in the serene and 
supernal light of Reason. 

As another example of the tremendous logical power that 
Theology finds herself possessed of the moment she ejects 
from her own realm and relegates to the world of finitude the 
whole-part axiom belonging there, witness the possibility of 
handling anew and in radical fashion the doctrine of Omni- 
science in its relation to the problem of Freedom. I shall 
briefly treat here but a single phase of the matter, the central 
difficulty, familiar to all. If, says the critic, God is Omniscient, 
he knows what I shall do, and, if he knows that, then to trust 
the feeling that I am free to choose is "to cheat the eye with 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 629 

dear illusion." On the other hand, if God does not know all 
future events, he is not Omniscient, and thereby is shorn of 
Dignity. To which, with mathematical certitude, I answer 
no : Omniscience indeed is gone, but not the Dignity of it ; 
that remains absolutely unimpaired, without the slightest loss 
or diminution of any kind. The problem is to reconcile, not 
Freedom and Omniscience, but Freedom and the Dignity 
of omniscience. The limits assigned to this article compel 
me to employ, without proving them here, certain mathe- 
matically established facts. Let TT be a plane. It bisects 
Space. A one-to-one correspondence has been shown 
(mathematically) to subsist between the infinite totality T of 
points on both sides of TT including those of TT itself, and the 
infinite totality S of points on either side of TT ; and since TT 
is any plane, such correspondence will not fail if TT be moved 
any finite distance parallel to itself. Now suppose each point 
of T to represent an element e of knowable reality, and denote 
by d the element of spiritual dignity attaching to knowledge 
of e. At once it is evident that a knowledge K g extending to 
all and only the elements e of the ^ar^-totality S e is precisely 
as rich in elements d of scientific dignity as is a knowledge 
K t extending to all the elements e of the whole-totality T e . 
It merely remains to suppose that T e is the whole of knowable 
reality, and we behold the astounding fact that what is now 
Omniscience, namely, K t , does not by even the smallest mite 
surpass in dignity the partial knowledge K s . The application 
and significance of that marvellous fact may be glimpsed at 
least by a slight change of imagery and orientation. Let us 
suppose, that is, that TT is now a moving Time-plane, the 
Present fore-front of Universal History bounding off the 
Future from the Past. We may suppose the Past alone is 
known, the Future unknown and undetermined. As the 
Present, the time-plane TT, wondrous transformer of Future 
into Past, keeping always parallel to itself, moves continuously 
forward with its infinite range and sweep of wing, the eligible, 
sifted, becomes in part the chosen ; the possible, the actual ; 



630 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the unknown, the known. Meanwhile the infinite Dignity of 
the knowledge of the growing Past remains for ever invariant, 
being absolutely equal to the dignity of Omniscience. Is it, 
then, contended that the future is, wholly or in part, unknown 
or undetermined ? That is not the point. The point is that 
the assertion may be made without thereby imputing to 
God's knowledge a Dignity less than that of knowing all. 
The distinction herewith mathematically drawn between the 
Dignity of omniscience and Omniscience itself, whereby the 
former may be affirmed without affirming the latter, is funda- 
mental ; and if ever it shall come to be rigorously applied, not 
only to the theory of Omniscience but, as it evidently may be, 
mutatis mutandis, to all the other attributes, as Absolute Good- 
ness, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, that involve the concept of 
infinitude, it will, I doubt not, produce a transformation of 
theological doctrine amounting to revolution. The bearings 
of the principle may not here be further traced or signalised. 
The notion of Omnipresence I shall treat briefly in another 
connection, in the light, however, of other points of view. 

And here a word of caution, but not of discouragement. 
The immense labour to be performed by Theology in eradi- 
cating from the proper domain of her study the whole-part 
axiom with its ubiquitous progeny of confusion ; and the 
light, the freedom, and the power that will thus accrue to 
her ; these are not the end but only the beginning of her 
work and emancipation. For the domain of transfinite reality 
is not a dead level, like a plane, not a realm of homogeneous 
content, but endlessly intricate and diversified, deep under 
deep and zone over zone of being, beyond every assignable 
limit and all imagination : yet traversed and filled with reason 
light-bearing aether of mind and penetrable throughout 
by thought. Just as the whole-part axiom separates the 
thinkable universe U into the finite world F and the infinite 
world /, so other principles or postulates or properties, 
operating within I itself, divide and subdivide it into a 
sequence of infinite component worlds, I 19 7 2 , . . . . , 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 631 

/ n+1 , / w+z , . . . ., and so on in endless succession : an infinite 
manifold of infinite worlds ; each of them being in respect 
to Machtigkeit, in respect to elemental wealth and dignity 
of structure, at once superior to every preceding world and 
inferior to all that follow. Such, in brief, is the spectacle 
that will gradually dawn upon Theology's vision as her study 
proceeds : world rising above world in measureless grandeur 
a summitless hierarchy of Infinites. The infinite of lowest 
rank in the ascending scale is that composed of wholes each 
matching in Mdchtigkeit such a totality as that of the integers 
or that of the rational fractions. An infinite of higher rank 
is that of the Continuum, and is exemplified by the aggregate 
of all the real numbers or by the ensemble of the points of 
a line. For it has been rigorously demonstrated that, if from 
this ensemble we remove in thought a point for each integer 
or each rational fraction, there will remain more points, even 
infinitely more, than the infinitude removed. Whether there 
exists an infinite intermediate in rank to the Continuum and 
the infinite of lowest rank remains a moot question, the 
answer to which, when found, will immortalise the finder. 
The two ranks here presented are, however, distinguished 
by the fact that the elements of an infinite of the lower rank 
may be so ordered that after each there is a next that is, 
none between and that, on the other hand, an infinite of 
the type of the Continuum does riot admit of such an arrange- 
ment. Accordingly the postulate of nextness, though to the 
" natural " mind it seems to be universally valid, has never- 
theless, like that of whole and part, near-lying limitations, 
and may not be used except with extremest care. In general, 
the postulate whatever it may be that yields division into 
I n and / n+1 is valid for the former and all preceding infinites, 
but fails in case of the latter and all that follow it. Thus 
it is seen that as the investigator ascends the hierarchy of 
infinitudes, mounting from the level of one sublimity to that 
of another yet more sublime, he passes ever from the reign 
of more specific to that of more generic Law. 



632 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Among all the ranks and types of infinitude, there is 
one, namely, the Continuum imperishable base of modern 
Analysis that is especially valuable as a pattern of Theology's 
subject-matter and makes a singularly powerful appeal, because 
not only is it, like the other types, open to Thought, but it 
engages the Sense as well, beaming upon the eye from every 
aspect of the visible universe. And no sooner shall Theology 
enter upon this subject than she shall behold, even in the 
threshold of the mansion, very wonderful facts, facts of 
mathematical certitude indeed and yet more marvellous than 
any that she has ever dreamed of or beheld in visions of faith. 
She will see, for example, that a line-segment of unit length 
assembles within itself precisely as many points as the 
beginningless, endless line to which it belongs ; she will see 
that a one-to-one correlation subsists, and that in an endless 
variety of ways, between the points of such a segment and 
all the points of a square or a cube having the segment for 
a side or an edge ; she will see that it is possible in a count- 
less diversity of ways to take from among the points within 
a sphere of a marble's size as many points as a sphere of 
planetary magnitude contains, and that there will yet remain 
within the little sphere as many points exactly as there are 
altogether in the total universe of Space ; nay, she will see 
that a space having as many dimensions as there are numbers 
in the totality of integers, a space, that is, of infinite dimension- 
ality and containing our own space as an exceedingly minute 
affair, a mere element, she will see that even such a space 
does not surpass in wealth of points nor yet in richness of 
internal relationship a line-segment so short that even a micro- 
scopic imagination could not picture its length. And thus be- 
holding such miracles of fact in the very fringe of the doctrine, 
she will advance to marvels greater still and the fiercer light 
within ; will be there transformed ; and will thenceforth con- 
front the intellect and doubt of the world, not with the un- 
availing plea of " mysterious and incomprehensible " but with 
the achievements and the instruments of exactest knowledge. 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY C38 

From the position here attained we may readily advance 
to vindication of the logical possibility of Omnipresence not 
by such inadequate analogies as immortal Bruno, for example, 
ingeniously employed in comparing it to a voice audible at 
every point of a room but by considerations bringing it 
strictly within the category of doctrines rigorously thinkable. 
Here is a sphere so small that even if it were a brilliantly 
coloured globe, the most powerful microscope could not 
reveal its presence. It is to be carefully noted that the 
following statements regarding it are absolutely independent 
of its size, and remain true if it be supposed shrunken to any 
degree of parvitude, however small, so long as it has not 
vanished utterly. Denote by s the totality of points within 
the tiny sphere, and by S the ensemble of all the other points 
of the whole of Space. In the course of recent years and 
by means within the grasp of the average student a little 
disciplined in the ways of rigorous thought, it has been re- 
peatedly demonstrated that there are precisely as many points 
in s, as in &, and that the former are joined to the latter in 
one-to-one fashion by relational rays of correspondence. As 
such correlation subsists in countless modes, suppose one of 
them chosen. This done, to any point of S, say the centre 
of the sun, corresponds a definite point of s ; to any other 
point of S, say the centre of the moon or the mass-centre of 
the Milky Way, corresponds another definite point of s ; and 
so on and on throughout the range of both totalities. Let 
not him, if such a one there be, essay Theology, who can 
fail to see clearly that in that tiny sphere, too small, mind 
you, for even microscopic vision, small indeed at will, there 
nevertheless exist point configurations matching perfectly in 
detail and every respect of inner constitution each and all 
of the infinitely infinite hosts of point configurations, minute 
and vast, simple and complex, here, there, and yonder, every- 
where throughout the height and depth and length and 
breadth of Space. We have now only to reflect that the 
same scheme of representation obtains universally, being valid 



634 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

at once for all infinitesimal spheres, and the truth dawns 
that the Whole really is incarnate in every Part the 
Emersonian aphorism that " the universe contrives to integrate 
itself in every smallest particle " being thus completely 
justified on scientific ground. But this is yet not all. The 
universe is dynamic, charged throughout with innumerable 
modes of motion. Each point, however, of any moving 
thing an ion of gas, a vibrating fibre of brain is represented 
by a corresponding point in s, and so within the tiny sphere 
indeed in every room however small the whole dynamics 
of the universe is depicted completely and co-enacted by 
motion of points and transformation of point configurations. 
There in miniature proceed at once the countless play and 
interplay of every kind of motion, small and large, simple 
arid complex, the quivering dance of the molecule, the wave 
and swing of universal aether. 

" Wie Alles sich zum Ganzen webt ! 
Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt ! 
Wie Himmelskrafte auf und nieder steigen 
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen ! 
Mit segenduftenden Schwingen 
Vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen, 
Harmonisch all' das All durchdringen ! " 

The limits of this article permit scarcely more than a 
passing allusion to another concept that is destined, I believe, 
as the eye becomes more and more adjusted to its light, to be 
a potent rationalising agency in Theology, especially elevating 
and amplifying her conception of the Conceivable, serving to 
bring not only the notion of Omnipresence, with which we are 
here concerned, but kindred notions as well, strictly within the 
category of understandable doctrines. I refer to the radiant 
concept of Hyperspace, which only a generation ago was 
regarded even by eminent mathematicians most adventurous 
of men as being purposeless and vain, but which meanwhile 
has advanced so rapidly to commanding position that even the 
following statement by Poiricare' in his recent address before 
the International Mathematical Congress at Rome on "JL'avenir 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 635 

des Mathematiques " is well within the limits of conservatism : 
" Nous sommes aujourd'hui tellement familiarises avec cette 
notion que nous pouvons en parler, meme dans un cours d'uni- 
versite, sans provoque trop d'etonnement." The fact is that the 
doctrine already exists in a vast and rapidly growing literature, 
flourishes in all the scientific languages of the world, and in its 
essential principles has become for mathematicians as orthodox 
as the multiplication table. The concept itself I have elsewhere l 
set forth at length in terms chosen with reference to the needs 
of the non-mathematician. The following brief considerations 
a mere hint of the theological serviceability of the concept- 
are not designed for those amiable souls who instinctively turn 
away from the light, finding their best source of happiness in 
dreamy contemplation of the mysterious and the dark, but for 
such as are intolerant of vagueness in Theology and appreciate 
the finding of modes and forms by aid of which her doctrines 
admit of being thought with precision. I am, of course, far 
from intending to assert that God is actually omnipresent in 
the manner to be herein described. My aim is a purely logical 
one, namely, to show the conceivability* of an infinite being 
being present everywhere in an infinite region without being 
contained in the region. Anyone who will devote a few hours 
to continuous reflection upon the infinite wealth of points in a 
straight line L, and to the infinite wealth of combinations and 
relationships that subsist and may be detected among them, 
will discover to his astonishment that a linear being or intelli- 
gence X inhabiting L and in its experience confined thereto 
would have all the material necessary for constructing mathe- 
matical doctrines matching in diversity and complexity all 
branches of geometry and analysis constructible by man. 

1 The Monist, January ] 906. The non-mathematical reader will find very 
enlightening the judicious essay on "The Fourth Dimension " in Schubert's 
Mathematical Essays and Recreations : The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, 
U.S.A. 

2 Pointed out admirably by W. B. Smith in an address on " The Culture 
Value of Mathematics" in 1898 before the American National Educational 
Association, and published in the Proceedings. 



636 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Such a being X, dwelling in the midst of such magnificence 
of order and law, naturally might attempt to construct a 
Theology and would encounter, among other difficulties, that 
of conceiving how the supreme being it hypothetised could be 
at one and the same time present everywhere in L. By 
hypothesis X could have no sense-perception or intuition of the 
fact that the infinite region Z/, in which it lives, moves, and 
has its being, is itself contained in another infinite region of 
higher order, namely, a plane TT ; hence it could not perceive, 
though it might conceive, the fact that the infinite, TT, is 
actually omnipresent in Z/, every part of L being completely 
immersed in TT ; and hence it could not perceive, though after 
some centuries of theologising it might conceive, the fact 
that the same attribute omnipresence in L would belong to 
a being whose reality, whatever its nature in other respects, 
was at least coextensive with TT. It is obvious that precisely 
similar reflections would be equally pertinent, should we 
replace L by a plane and TT by space itself. We live in Space 
and encounter exactly the same difficulties encountered by X, 
and they are surmountable in the same way, namely, by the 
concept of hyperspace. For this concept presents us in the 
first place with a four-dimensional space S 4 completely 
immersing our own, being in contact with all its points and 
present at all of them, just as our space is omnipresent to TT and 
TT to L ; next, similarly related to S^ comes 5 ; then follow, 
in order of ascending dimensionality, S 69 /S Y 7 , .... S n , . . . 
and so on endlessly ; affording thus conceptual provision 
for the presence everywhere in our dwelling-place of a Being 
whose reality, if you please, at the same time not only 
pervades but infinitely transcends any assignable space, how- 
ever high its rank in the endless scale of hyperspatial 
grandeur. 

Matter presses from every side, but this writing must 
close. Not, however, without a further word fulfilling in 
some measure the above- made promise touching Theology's 
difficulties of the domestic kind. As her investigation pro- 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY 687 

ceeds, engaging simultaneously in the analytic and the 
constructive study of the attributes ascribed by her to 
Deity, she is very probably or even certainly destined to 
discover, sooner or later, that those attributes, however in- 
dubitable or undeniable they may be when regarded singly, 
yet, taken together, involve essential and ineradicable incom- 
patibilities of thought, and, therefore, must finally defeat 
every possible effort to combine them in one self-consistent 
body of doctrine. The question is, what is to be done in 
that event? Answering out of the fullness of her own ex- 
perience in such cases, Mathesis will venture to offer her 
sister the following counsel. "My years and station," she 
will say, "and the character of my occupation entitle me 
to believe that I am not without some insight into the 
nature of your gravest difficulty and not without some 
knowledge of the means available for overcoming it. Usus, 
magister egregius, hoc me docuit. I, too, in the course of 
my long career have expended, I do not say have wasted, 
much time and energy in attempting to combine the non- 
combinable, in attempting, that is, to erect a solid and 
unitary doctrine respecting some object of my thought 
upon a basis of postulates that were indeed individually 
sound and eligible, but that, taken collectively as a system, 
were subsequently found to involve logical incompatibility 
and so not to allow any superstructure not doomed to quick 
decay by the presence within it of fatal contradictions. 
Fortunately, I have not besought or trusted any super-logical 
providence to preserve such architecture against external 
criticism or the destructive agency of its own defects, but 
have had the grace to tear it down myself and prepare to 
build anew. My practice has been to examine again and 
patiently to re-examine the basal postulates, to form from 
them by trial and experiment as many sub-groups as possible 
subject to the condition that each of these be entirely free 
of interior inconsistence, and then, upon the sub-groups as 
distinct though related, foundations, to construct as many 



638 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

distinct but kindred doctrines, each of strength to mock 
at time and endure for aye. And my practice, as you and 
all the world may know, has been justified of its fruits. 
Examples abound in every division of my commonwealth, 
and some have come to fame. To cite but three of these 
behold the noble structures of Euclid, of Bolyai and Lobat- 
schevski, and of Riemann. There stand the great geometries, 
each upon its own foundation of compatible postulates, and 
there, flawless within, unassailable from without, they will stand 
for ever, eternal witnesses of the fact that, contrary to many 
a venerated but shallow creed, one object of thought may, 
by virtue of its kind and not of limitations of the human 
mind, transcend the bounds of any one constructible theory, 
and in its own ultimate nature allow and validate at once, with- 
out annulling their differences, a class of dissonant doctrines. 
Thus you perceive, for example, that my Geometry is one, 
though my geometries are many just as Music is one, though 
its forms be as varied as the moods of the sea. And I, 
Mathesis, am one, as Poetry is one, though my theories, my 
doctrines, are legion ; for these but differ among themselves, 
as the myriad forms of Art: each is assertable, each being 
valid, of one great Form common to them all. My meaning, 
I trust, is clear. Conquest of your gravest difficulty demands 
division. By the method of trial and experiment, the 
fundamental attributes that you hypothetise of Deity 
must be assorted into sets each composed of harmonious 
elements. Implicit in each such group is a coherent and 
sacred doctrine. As these doctrines unfold, your conception 
of yourself will change : you, Theology, will indeed be one ; 
but many, your theologies. And thenceforth the Object of 
all your thought will appear to you and will be shown by 
you to the world, not in the light of a solitary sun, but in 
that of a constellation." 

CASS1US J. KEYSER. 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, 
NEW YORK, 



CHRISTIANITY AND THE EMPIRE 
IN ROME AND IN CHINA. 

THE REV. P. J. MACLAGAN, M.A., D.PHIL. 

ONE of the most interesting sections in Sir William Ramsay's 
recent book, The Cities of St Paul, is that entitled "The 
Empire the Hope of the World." If we added to this title 
another clause, " and Christianity the Hope of the Empire," 
we would indicate still more fully the scope of the section. It 
gives us, along with much more, a very fresh illustration of the 
words of St Paul, " When the fulness of the time came." If, 
as the older apologetic pointed out, the establishment of the 
Empire favoured the spread of Christianity, so now is it made 
equally evident that Christianity could have furnished just 
what the Empire needed for the accomplishment of its aim. 

The present situation in China offers in several respects an 
interesting parallel to the state of things which Sir William 
Ramsay describes as existing when Christianity was beginning 
its career in the early Roman Empire. 1 shall try to draw out 
this parallel, and indicate its suggestiveness. 

In Rome, at that time, we have a vast republic in process 
of transformation, striving to organise itself and knit itself 
together in a well-ordered and stable Imperial polity. In 
China, now, we have an empire organised indeed in a way 
that we might more reasonably call loose if it had not resisted 
disruption for so long, but at any rate now beginning to tingle 
with a new sense of national unity and seeking a polity that 
will adequately express this new feeling. And just as the 

039 



640 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Roman Empire, according to Sir William Ramsay, might have 
sought the solution of its problem along three lines political, 
educational, and religious so is it now in China. 

On the first of these points Sir William Ramsay had no 
occasion to dwell. " The Empire," he says, " was trying to 
weld the separate nations into a great Imperial unity. ... It 
is needless and impertinent here to describe or praise the skill 
with which the Empire attempted this task." The second 
matter, that of education, was not dealt with so satisfactorily ; 
rather the Roman Empire deserves only blame for total neglect. 
The Empire was exposed to danger " from the enormous pre- 
ponderance of an uneducated populace. This danger was all 
the more serious because the sovereign power nominally lay in 
the hands of the people. ... It should have been the prime 
duty of the Empire to educate the populace so that it might 
become a rational, not an irrational and incalculable, force. . . . 
The Pauline Church in the Empire would have put an end to 
the danger, and strengthened the State as it spread. The 
educated middle class who constituted the Church would have 
grown and reached more deeply and widely into the uneducated 
masses, raising them to its level. . . . Such was the Pauline 
policy. The Imperial policy .... was to neglect education 
but to feed and amuse the populace. . . . The Pauline policy 
would have saved the ancient civilisation by reforming the 
State. The policy which was actually carried into effect by 
the Emperors ruined the State by destroying education." 
Finally, Rome needed a universal religion. " The unity and 
brotherhood of the whole Roman world was the goal towards 
which Imperial policy was consciously tending. To attain the 
goal a common religion was needed, and Augustus found 
himself, against his own will and wish, forced to make an 
Imperial religion. . . . The majesty of Rome incarnate in the 
reigning Emperor was presented to Augustus by the popular 
choice as the common religion of the Empire. . . . The 
Imperial cult was demanded by the populace, the new 
Universal religion of Christ was offered by the insistent voice. 



CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA 641 

>fPaul." So the Empire was committed to a fatal conflict 
dth Christianity, which was carried on by succeeding 
Imperors more or less whole-heartedly and with more or 
insight into its essential nature, until, too late, in 
'onstantine an official Christianity was victorious. 

How far, then, can we make out our suggested parallel 
between this situation in ancient Rome and the present state 
of affairs in China ? That in either case we have, as I have 
said, an empire grappling with a serious problem of self- 
organisation to correspond to new conditions, will, I imagine, 
be easily granted. That China is seeking a solution of her 
problem along the three lines, political, educational, religious, 
that were also open to Rome this too can be made evident. 

In a sense, the government of China has always been demo- 
cratic. The highest posts in government service have been 
open to aspirants from the lowest classes. Beyond the official 
ranks, too, there is a loose home-rule through local bodies of 
gentry and the village elders. It is recognised, however, that 
more is needed to meet new conditions some political scheme 
which will give scope to the quickened interest in things 
political, and which will unite and express the popular will. 
Accordingly, self-government is being officially fostered by the 
formation of what, with rough accuracy, we may call Muni- 
cipal Councils. Besides this, the Chinese Government, as is 
well known, has sent commissioners to visit Europe and 
America, to report on the political institutions of the countries 
visited, with a view to the introduction of Representative 
Government into China. These problems of local self-govern- 
ment and of representative institutions will assuredly task to 
the full the ingenuity of China's statesmen. We must wait to 
see if they will show that skilful political adaptiveness for which 
Sir William Ramsay praises the statesmen of Rome. 

In the matter of education, however, the statesmen of 
China are wiser than those of Rome. The Chinese Govern- 
ment has inaugurated a vast educational programme, and is at 

least making some show of acting upon it. What may be at 
VOL. VII. No. 3. 41 



642 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

present the exact proportion of show and reality is a difficult 
question to answer, nor happily is an answer necessary for the 
making out of our parallel. It is enough to point out that to 
China, as to her ancient analogue, education is presented as a 
necessity, and that she at least recognises this and is not 
altogether neglecting the educational factor of political 
stability. 

I have more fear of being accused of forcing the parallel 
between Rome and China when I come to the third, the 
religious element. What is there to correspond to the institu- 
tion of the Imperial cult of Rome ? There is an imperially 
regulated worship in China, rites to be performed by the 
Emperor and by the magistrates, as well as a popular worship 
unregulated by law. Now it seems to me not without signi- 
ficance that just at this juncture in the history of China her 
Government should have singled out one element of the official 
worship and emphasised its importance. A decree was issued 
in the latter days of 1906 raising Confucius to an eminence 
exceeding even that which had been accorded to him before. 
" In view of the supreme excellence of the great sage Confucius, 
whose virtues equal Heaven and earth and make him worthy of 
the adoration of a myriad ages, it is the desire of Her Imperial 
Majesty the Empress-Dowager Tze Hsi, etc., that the great 
sage shall in future be accorded the same sacrificial ceremonies 
of worship accorded to Heaven and earth when sacrifice is paid 
by the Emperor." Since this decree, and indeed before its 
issue, from the very beginning of the new educational move- 
ment, reverence or worship of the sage opinions have differed 
as to whether what was required was reverence or worship- 
has been prescribed in the schools and colleges of the Empire. 

Confucius has long been, more than aught else, the name to 
which Chinese feelings of reverence attach themselves. From 
among the various objects of worship in China, no other could 
have been selected more likely to be a unifying principle for 
the Empire. Heaven the worship of which has been re- 
stricted to the Emperor is too distant, and any claims for 



CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA 643 

supreme recognition that might be put forward on behalf of 
the various canonised worthies (lao-yeh) would simply neutral- 
ise each other. But all parts of the Empire and all classes of 
the people have agreed in honouring Confucius, whom now this 
recent decree raises to the loftiest pre-eminence. Whatever 
may have been the case previously, it seems to make him now 
the object not only of reverence but of religious worship. 
Here, then, we seem to have a fair parallel to the institution 
of the Imperial cult in Rome. 

We have now only to make the parallel between Rome and 
China complete by adding that as in the Roman Empire so in 
China, Christianity presents itself as a power to be reckoned 
with, preferring its aid to the Empire in its task. 

If the situation in China is parallel to the ancient state of 
affairs in Rome, what will the issue be ? Will China take up 
the same attitude to Christianity that Rome did ? Would the 
result of such an attitude be equally disastrous ? Or will she 
choose otherwise, and with what outcome ? 

The difference between ancient and modern conditions is 
such that we need not, at present, consider the possibility of a 
Chinese persecution of Christianity on the Roman scale. In 
spite of the apparent analogy of the Boxer rising in part 
because of the result of that rising an imperially organised 
attempt to exterminate Christianity is not now probable. But, 
short of persecution, the Chinese Government might take up a 
hostile attitude to the Christian religion, and at present it 
undoubtedly regards Christianity with some suspicion. 

As everywhere, Christianity, by its intolerance of any rival 
an intolerance which is the necessary result of its claim to 
be the absolutely true religion and by the consequent aloof- 
ness of Christians from all the popular religion and from much 
of social life, provokes the charge of atheism and inhumanity. 
These old-world accusations are repeated in the charges Wu 
shen ming, wuju mu, " No worship of spirits, no piety towards 
parents." There is, besides, in China a peculiar intensification 
of the feeling that Christianity is a foreign religion, and that 



644 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

those who follow it make themselves aliens. The missionaries 
are foreign, and the Churches they gather are known as the 
British or American or French Churches. Religious freedom 
is guaranteed by treaty with foreign powers, and foreign consuls 
are appealed to to protect the Christians. If it is said that the 
Emperor has sanctioned Christianity, the answer is that he did 
so under compulsion. Village elders and Government officials 
decline responsibility for the converts, and bid them apply to 
their missionary or consul. It is this foreign complexion of 
Christianity that exposed it to the fury of that anti-foreign 
rather than anti- Christian movement which we call Boxerism. 
It is this aspect, too, that makes it difficult for the Chinese 
Government to recognise Christianity for what it is, or welcome 
its co-operation. 

However, this alien appearance of Christianity will diminish 
with the increase in the number of Chinese Christians, and the 
growth, so happily evident, of a native Church. The Chinese 
will become accustomed to Christian neighbours, and will find 
that they are neither impracticable nor destitute of the qualities 
of our common humanity. The Christians, too, strengthened 
by fellowship among themselves, will be less likely to fall back 
on the foreigner. Indeed, they too are touched by the general 
rise of a patriotic feeling, and are being stimulated by it to 
make themselves independent of foreign help. It may be 
hoped, therefore, that the foreign associations of Christianity 
may cease to be a hindrance to its being allowed to take its 
place among the forces of Chinese life. 

At present, suspicion perhaps attaches to Christianity for 
another reason. The Chinese Government may be desirous of 
reform, but it certainly fears revolution, and perhaps suspects the 
Christian Church of being a mother of revolutionaries. I do 
not think that the suspicion is well grounded, though doubtless 
there may be rash, inconsiderate spirits among the native 
Christians. But such suspicion need not surprise us. The 
Taipings are an example of a revolutionary movement 
animated by a religion with Christian affinities; and if 



CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA 645 

tudents generally are, not without reason, regarded as likely 
ibjects of revolutionary enthusiasms, the students of Christian 
lools and colleges will suffer from the general imputation. 
It is to be wished, therefore, that the Chinese Government 
rould look more closely into the characteristics of the Chris- 
dan Church. It would then be seen that while Christianity 
ivours reform it does not favour revolution, and that Christians, 
such, are not likely to be found among the revolutionaries 
(ko-ming tang) of the Chinese Empire. "The Christians," 
lys Sir William Ramsay, " were in the last resort the reform- 
ig party : the Emperors felt that reform must affect their 
own power. Whereas an uneducated populace could never 
use the power that it nominally possessed, and must entrust it 
to an autocrat, a people trained to think and to feel responsi- 
bility must seek to use it themselves, and perhaps destroy the 
autocratic system. The Church, therefore, presented itself to 
the imagination of the greatest and most far-seeing Emperors 
as their most dangerous rival ; and, as a whole, the Imperial 
policy was inexorably opposed to the reforming party." No 
doubt Christianity is to-day what it was then. But though 
this be so, the old Roman conflict between Empire and Church 
need not be repeated in China if only the Chinese Government 
is sincere in its professed desire for reform. If the Christian 
ideas of the infinite worth of each man and of individual 
responsibility favour liberty, its subjection to the grace of God 
as its supreme rule excludes selfish lawlessness. Christian 
freedom is essentially an ordered freedom, and, apart from 
individual extravagances, Christianity may be depended on 
to co-operate towards any wise scheme of liberty, creating 
both the desire for freedom and the conscience that will use 
freedom aright. The native Christian community will be a 
valuable asset in any national reformation. Along the lines 
of political reorganisation there need be no conflict between 
Christianity and the Empire. 

Nor, of course, is there any necessary antagonism between 
Christianity and Education. Education is undoubtedly 



646 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

potent force not always for unmixed good. The Chinese 
Government just now, as it confronts the educational en- 
thusiasm it has done something to encourage, is a little like 
Frankenstein in presence of his monster. An " enlightened " 
but undisciplined youth is everywhere an unstable and restless 
political element. It is possible that the recent elevation of 
Confucius and the emphasis put on the recognition of him in 
the very centres of the new learning may be intended to supply 
a conservative and moderating element, and to secure that the 
scholars of the new knowledge should not break absolutely 
with the old, but find in the Confucian books, if not the 
matter, yet at least the ethical spirit of their learning. Now 
Christian education, if it is worthy of the name, carries with 
it far greater safeguards against mere windy sciolism, and is 
leavened throughout by a spirit more potently ethical because 
not ethical merely but also religious. There is no reason, 
therefore, why, in the interests of education, the Chinese 
Government should look askance at Christian students or at 
Christian educational institutions. Unfortunately, there is 
yet no cordial recognition of Christian schools, either from a 
mistaken fear of the results of Christian education on its 
students, or, as has been suggested, from a fear lest the 
Government schools be outclassed by their Christian rivals ; 
while, as to Christian students, the institution of the worship 
of Confucius, in effect if not in intention, makes it difficult 
for them to avail themselves of the State education. It is 
true that some have suggested another and more favourable 
interpretation of the edict with regard to Confucius. Only 
the Emperor, they argue, can worship Heaven. If, then, 
Confucius is to be worshipped with the same rites, these, too, 
must be restricted to the Emperor. It follows that students 
in the Government schools cannot be expected to engage in 
this worship, and thus a door is left open for the admission 
of Christians as students without doing violence to their 
consciences. The argument is ingenious, but it does not 
seem to be borne out by the facts. I am afraid we must 



CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA 647 

admit that Christian students and Christian schools are alike 
more or less " boycotted " by the Government. 

This unfavourable attitude towards Christianity is of grave 
moment, for no one can contemplate without misgiving the 
issues of a purely materialistic education. The influence of 
Confucius even if that influence is secured by the recent 
decree is not religious. It is not anti-materialistic save in so 
far as it upholds an ethical ideal. One fears, however, that 
with the advance of even secular knowledge Confucius will 
not be able to maintain his giddy pre-eminence. Our 
estimates of his worth and historical magnitude may vary ; but 
a wider knowledge will certainly not permit even the Chinese 
to regard him as this decree enjoins. Excessive adulation may 
result in excessive depreciation, and the real good that is in 
him be neglected because of the alleged good that is found to 
be wanting. If such a time should come, before a substitute 
for the Confucian influence is admitted, the whole educational 
system will be left without even that measure of moralising 
which Confucius might supply. 

What China is seeking by the supreme elevation of 
Confucius, but will certainly fail to secure, Christianity can 
give her in a higher degree and in a form compatible with any 
growth in knowledge or change in polity. If China could 
exclude Christianity while admitting other Western influences, 
she would certainly fall under the blight of a purely material- 
istic view of things with all its superstitious by-products. 
Here, where the educational and religious interests meet, 
China must choose between Christ and Confucius. Un- 
fortunately, the official bias is at present against Christ. On 
any strict interpretation of the declared intention of Govern- 
ment, a conscientious Christian would find it difficult to study 
in a Government college ; and no pupil of a Christian college 
need look for Government recognition or employment. How 
much China would lose by the exclusion of Christianity from 
her schools, and of Christians from her official ranks, it is 
difficult to say. 



648 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Happily, however, decrees are not always strictly inter- 
preted. Happily, also, China cannot now exclude Christianity 
from her national life. The Christian Church is a great and 
growing body. We may hope that the Chinese Government 
will see the folly of trying, or even pretending, to discriminate 
against so large a number of her not least intelligent, patriotic, 
and moral subjects. A state recognition of Christianity, such 
as was accorded to it in the Roman Empire by Constantine, is 
not to be desired. If China can learn from Rome the folly of 
opposing Christianity, the Christian Church may learn enough 
to decline any donum fatale. No more is to be desired by 
the friends of China and of Christianity alike than a fair field 
and no favour. China will then find all that is good in her 
Confucian ideal conserved for her. She will lose nothing and 
gain much. If she would learn the correct line of action, she 
has in Japan a nearer, and in this respect a happier, example 
than ancient Rome. 

P. J. MACLAGAN. 

SWATOW. 



VARIATIONS BETWEEN MATTHEW 
AND MARK. 

THE REV. B. H. ALFORD, M.A., 

Formerly Vicar of St Luke's, Mitford Place. 

IT may be affirmed that now, after long controversy, it is 
settled that the custom in Hebrew literature which obtains 
in the Old Testament holds also to a great extent in the New. 
This custom is concisely stated by the expression "Books 
were made out of books." Our fathers in criticism would 
have stared at seeing each paragraph in Dr Driver's edition 
of Genesis distinguished by separate letters. To us J and E 
and P are no mysteries, but indispensable clues to the date 
and value of the paragraphs so marked. By the help of these 
letters, with D added, we can largely reconstruct for ourselves 
the appearance of the Hebrew scriptures in the eighth century 
and in the seventh and in the fifth. So we have at least three 
strata of narrative each stratum distinguished by its appro- 
priate fossil words and sentiments, and we can arrive at 
some determination of values. We discover that J contains 
traces of primitive cult, and usages which P would disown 
and obliterate. We discover that the Chronicler re-edits the 
narrative in Kings, bringing it into conformity with his own 
conceptions of what should have occurred. We discover that 
the compiler of Samuel is not disconcerted by the varying 
accounts received as to the inception of royalty, but inserts 
them both, although the older ascribes the change in govern- 
ment to the authority of Jehovah, the later (moved by 
experience) to the rebellious pride of the people. 

649 



650 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

These things are well-established conclusions of criticism. 
How far do they serve us as guides in studying the Synoptic 
Gospels ? First of all, it is prima facie probable that what Jews 
wrote, even late in their history, would be written according 
to the received method of their race. Between the fourth- 
century book of Chronicles and the Synoptic Gospels we have 
the first- century Books of Maccabees, in which is continued 
the old tradition of re-writing events with a prejudice and a 
purpose. It is apparent also from this example that change 
of language did not carry with it change of literary form. 
Scratch the Greek writer and you will still find a Hebrew 
underneath. There is another point. Oral sources are pre- 
supposed and discernible in Old Testament narratives, but 
our analysis has to be content with getting back to the earliest 
written document ; so in pursuing up the gospel to its origin 
we are dimly conscious of years of preparation as it passed 
through the mouths of men, but it appears lost labour to 
expect great results, if any, by going back to that embryonic 
stage. Only when what we may handle came to the birth in 
concrete shape, can reasoning find its basis and justification. 

Happily, there is a fair consensus of scholars now, at least 
in England, that the main common source of the Synoptics 
was a written document : and again, that " Ur- Marcus " is a 
figment of the Teutonic mind which may be dismissed, with 
the assertion that we have in our present Mark the earliest 
written Christian gospel the J of the New Testament. But 
not far behind it in date came another which has perished in its 
integrity, but survives in such portions of Matthew and Luke 
as are similar, if not identical, and absent from Mark. With 
regard to this second Synoptic constituent, known as Q, one is in 
difficulties. Professor Burkitt agrees with the Dean of West- 
minster in thinking that its outline should be taken from Luke 
rather than from Matthew ; yet in the same series of lectures 
Professor Burkitt will have it from references (as he surmises) 
to Josephus, that both treatises of St Luke are subsequent to 
the appearance of the Antiquities in 94 A.D. This would give 



MATTHEW AND MARK 651 

us as the main authority for the Nonmarcan Q a writer 
posterior by ten or fifteen years to the other compiler, accord- 
ing to the usual reckoning of the date of the appearance of 
the Greek treatise called after Matthew. 

We may perhaps gain some fruitful help in perplexity by 
detaching one particular point for discussion. Let us take 
Mark's narrative as embodying what was known of Jesus 
between the years 65 and 70, and the Gospel of St Matthew 
as reflecting the state of belief ten years or so after. What 
inferences follow from the comparison ? What changes had 
taken place in the conception of the character of the Master, 
and in the record of his words ? What is their authority, and 
which of the two statements is to be preferred the earlier or 
the later ? 

If the analogy with Old Testament literature holds we 
should expect to find in the re- written gospel the like amount 
of tendency which we find in the E account of the origin of 
monarchy as compared with the J account (both in 1 Samuel), 
or as we find in the Chronicler's description of the whole course 
of monarchy as contrasted with the description in Kings. 
There we can have no hesitation which narrative to prefer, 
viz. the primitive rather than the idealised. Does the same 
preference hold between the two Synoptics, or does another 
factor known as " development " enter into the question, and 
simplify or, maybe, darken it ? The variations into which it 
is proposed to enter are of two kinds : first, variations in actual 
statement, by addition or subtraction ; secondly, variations in 
general sentiment, by virtue of a new setting given, or a fresh 
suggestion applied, to the same sayings or doings of Jesus. 

Matthew had Mark's gospel much as we possess it, before 
him ; that is generally conceded ; and in reproducing he altered 
it, and the alterations show a bias or purpose greater than can 
be accounted for merely by difference in the persons addressed. 
This bias represents some ten years or so of growth in doctrine ; 
is it in the direction of the better or the worse ? 

Here are some of the purposes apparent. 



652 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

1. A particularist purpose narrowing the gospel, at least 
in its inception. In Mark (vi. 10) no bounds are set to the 
mission of the Twelve, whereas in Matthew it is expressly 
limited to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel" (xi. 6). 
In consonance with this limitation, when the Master is on 
Phoenician soil, Matthew (xv. 24) makes him say that he 
was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, whereas 
Mark (vii. 27) merely speaks of their priority in being fed. 
Did Jesus himself so narrow the gospel, or did he not ? 

2. An ascetic purpose. In his instructions to the Twelve, 
as given in St Mark (vi. 6-13), Jesus apparently has in view 
the pilgrim directions for the march out of Egypt : they are to 
set forth " with shoes on their feet, and staff in their hand." 
Matthew (xi. 10) misunderstands, and annuls this allowance, 
stripping them of everything, "nor shoes, nor staff." In 
keeping with this tendency we find Matthew (xix. 10-12) 
alone reporting a discussion on celibacy, in which the expediency 
of such a state is distinctly upheld by Jesus, in the case of 
those to whom it is given to receive the saying. But again, 
in exactly the opposite spirit, into the magisterial Xeyo> vp.lv of 
the Master concerning divorce, which Mark (x. 11) makes 
absolute, Matthew (xix. 9) introduces the qualification py eVl 
TTopveia, which he repeats in the Sermon on the Mount (v. 32), 
where Luke (xvi. 18) does not support him. 

How are we to understand this alternate strictness and 
relaxation ? Can our Lord's directions on general matters be 
modified by circumstances? Does contact with the world 
justify the Church in lowering the standard ? 

3. Ecclesiastical purposes. Although St Mark was con- 
sidered to be specially in the confidence of St Peter, the 
momentous saying concerning the custody of the keys of the 
Kingdom had not risen on the literary horizon in 65 A.D., but 
emerged about 75 A.D. in solitary glory under Matthew's 
authority (xvi. 19), for Luke has no place for it in his careful 
chronicle. Neither can the equally momentous formula of 
baptism rendered at full by Matthew (xxviii. 19) be found even 



MATTHEW AND MARK 653 



in the supplement to Mark, nor does such a word as e/ 
occur in any Synoptic but the first. Are these things fortuitous, 
or purposed ? 

4. But by far the most characteristic of all Matthew's 
purposes is one I may call theological: it concerns the person 
and work of Jesus. In contrast with Mark, he augments the 
number and force of the miracles. Whereas the earlier account 
represents the Master as flying from popularity, afraid lest the 
lust of the people for bodily cures should divert him from 
preaching, "for to this end came I forth" (Mark i. 35-38), 
Matthew insists on frequent and numerous wonders, altering 
" he healed many that were sick " (Mark i. 34) into " he healed 
all" (Matt. viii. 16), and quoting Isaiah to support him: 
it is not only devils which are cast out, but " all manner of 
sickness and all manner of disease " which is cured (Matt. 
iv. 23). There is one record of raising from death common 
to the Synoptics: you have only to read that record to see 
how the story grew in definiteness and magnitude. According 
to Mark (v. 23) Jairus says TO Ovyarpiov pov ecr^arcys e^ei, 
corresponding to St Luke's assertion (viii. 42) aTreOvyo-Ktv ; in 
St Matthew (ix. 18) it is rj OvyaTfjp pov a/cm ereXeur^cre^. You 
may suggest that this comes of compression, in lieu of the 
subsequent message concerning her decease, but the Master 
shows an incredulity as to the truth of the message he could 
hardly have shown to the father's testimony. We should 
in all probability have taken the sentence " She is not 
dead, but sleepeth" (Mark v. 39) in a literal sense, had not 
Matthew's opening words defined the situation differently. 
St Luke accords with Mark rather than Matthew, and if you 
stumble at his expression "her spirit came again," you will 
find exactly the same expression in the text of Judges (xv. 19) 
respecting the recovery of Samson from a swoon. 

Before we come to the particular Christology of Matthew, 
we must notice one significant omission on his part from the 
document ex hypothesi open before him. He had prefaced 
his gospel with an account of how it was revealed by an angel 



654 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that " that which was conceived of Mary was of the Holy 
Ghost" (i. 20), and how the babe was worshipped by Magi 
from the East with royal offerings. He must have felt 
himself precluded, therefore, from reproducing the one and 
only incident concerning Mary to be found in Mark. How 
could a mother with such assured knowledge and preconcep- 
tions have come over from Nazareth to Capernaum as one in 
a "conseil de famille," intending to lay hold of Jesus, "for 
they said he is beside himself"? (Mark iii. 21). Or can you 
give any other reasonable meaning to the passage than that 
the friends of chapter iii. verse 21 " who went out " are the 
mother and brethren who " arrive and send unto him " in verse 
31 ? Would any other cause than a knowledge of their object 
have warranted Jesus in the preference he expressed for an 
unrelated family of the loyal over an unworthy family of his 
own blood ? The survival of this notice in Mark resembles 
that of certain fossils embedded in J and E of the Old 
Testament, which tell of antecedent ages and earlier faiths. 

Let us further consider how Matthew enhances Christ's 
personality. He does it, in the first instance, by removing 
phrases which savour of dishonour, because they show human 
emotions or infirmities. Jesus is not supposed to " marvel " 
at unbelief as he does in Mark (vi. 6) ; nor " to look round 
with anger, grieved at the hardness" of men's hearts (Mark 
iii. 5) ; nor to ask " Who touched me ? " as not knowing (Mark 
v. 30) ; nor to desire to pass by his disciples in the boat, as not 
able (Mark vi. 48) ; nor to wish for concealment, and yet not 
obtain it (Mark vii. 24). 

Then there occur changes in Mark's original language as 
too naive. Jesus is not the carpenter (Mark vi. 3), but 
the "carpenter's son" (Matt. xiii. 55); the incredulity of 
Nazareth does not wholly incapacitate him from acting (Mark 
vi. 5) ; it but limits the number of miracles to a few in place 
of many (Matt. xiii. 58). 

But the most striking alteration of all is that which sweeps 
away one Marcan assertion altogether, and substitutes for it 



MATTHEW AND MARK 655 

another of a very different complexion. A rich man had come 
to the Rabbi with a question, AiSacrfcaXe dyaOe, TL irorfcra) Iva 
a)r)v alatmov K\r)povofj.rjo-<o ; and Jesus had deprecated his form 
of address, ri JJL Xeyets dyaBov ; ouSets dyaObs et ///>) efs 6 #eog. 
So Mark (x. 17, 18) renders the opening of the conversation, 
and Luke agrees (xviii. 18, 19) ; but Matthew (xix. 16, 17) 
apparently conceives that an offence would lie in the words if 
literally reproduced. He takes, therefore, the epithet from 
AiSacr/caXe and conjoins it with rt, changing accordingly Christ's 
question into TL /xe e/owras irepl TOV dyaOov ; but preserving els 
eVrtz/ 6 dyaOos, quite apart from its original context. The 
scrupulousness of Matthew is like the scrupulousness of 
the Chronicler (2 Chron. i. 3-6), who cannot mention that 
Solomon went up to the high place at Gibeon without an 
apology and a ritual explanation, on account of the subse- 
quent scandal attaching to high places. So Matthew would 
depart from what Mark and Luke testify that Jesus said, 
rather than leave his words open to misconstruction. 

There is much in St Matthew which reminds one of that 
Bishop of St David's who in translating the Psalms for the 
Bishops' Bible laid down for himself the principle so to render 
them as to agree with the New Testament quotations, "for 
the avoiding of offence." A small but significant instance 
occurs in the account of the crucifixion. The second evange- 
list knows of a charitable Roman soldier who offered Jesus at 
the time of crucifixion a narcotic, " wine mingled with myrrh," 
but he received it not (Mark xv. 23). The first evangelist 
remembered a complaint of the Psalmist that his enemies 
aggravated his sufferings, and he has it that the wine was 
mixed with gall, which surely was no narcotic, and " therefore 
Jesus tasted it, though he would not drink " (Matt, 
xxvii. 34). 

The reader can hardly at times help being annoyed at 
Matthew's want of appreciation of the gospel he copied and 
at his clumsy endeavours to mend it. What can be more 
delicate and confiding than Jesus' way with his disciples accord- 



656 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

ing to Mark ? He would let them puzzle out by themselves 
the difficulty raised by some enigmatic saying ; while accord- 
ing to St Matthew he suggests the answer, in advance of any 
time for reflection. It is surely a true consultation of their 
minds that the Teacher intends when he asks, " Who do men 
say that I am ? " (Mark viii. 27). There is not much room for 
original thought when the question runs, " Who do men say 
that the Son of man is ? " (Matt. xvi. 13). This may be 
but defect of literary style, did it not accompany similar in- 
aptitude to follow the course of events as laid down in St 
Mark. Professor Burkitt has some excellent pages * in justifi- 
cation of the Marcan arrangement : Jesus has no breach with 
the Pharisees until after the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 
vii. 6) ; in Matthew he denounces them in his first open-air 
sermon (Matt. v. 20). Jesus does not encounter the Sad- 
ducees till he reaches their customary home, Jerusalem (Mark 
xii. 18) ; in Matthew they are found in Galilee in strange 
fellowship with the Pharisees (Matt. xvi. 1). Jesus wins 
the first confession of his Messiahship from Peter in the retire- 
ment of Csesarea Philippi, in answer to a deliberate question 
at a definite crisis of his life (Mark viii. 29) ; in Matthew the 
disciples had already some time before worshipped him, saying, 
" Of a truth thou art the Son of God " (Matt. xiv. 33). It 
may be suggested that Mark has systematised, and that 
Matthew's incoherences are tokens of originality. But if that 
ground be taken up, there should be adduced proofs of priority 
on the part of Matthew's gospel. The differences taken in 
connection with points already dwelt upon make rather for 
degeneracy. 

But variation in sentiment is even more apparent than 
in statement. What is the mental and moral attitude of 
Jesus in dealing with materialists, who would credit nothing 
but such a sign of authority over nature as Moses or Elijah 
exhibited the one in bringing manna, the other fire from 
heaven ? According to Mark he met them with a point- 

1 The Gospel History and its Transmission, pp. 79 ff. 



MATTHEW AND MARK 657 

blank refusal : " There shall no sign be given unto this genera- 
tion " (Mark viii. 12). But Christians of a later age fidgeted 
for some more satisfactory answer: so in editing Mark, St 
Matthew (xvi. 4) added d firj TO cnj/xetoi/ Ion/a : then, in a 
doublet taken from Q, accepted the sign as consisting in the 
preaching of Jonah (Matt. xii. 41) ; then, not satisfied with 
that obscure reference, inserted (shall we say on the strength 
of the Christian consciousness ?) the verse, " As Jonah was three 
days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the 
Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of 
the earth" (Matt. xii. 40) preternaturally retaining his life 
under abnormal conditions. Does it not therefore come to 
this, that what the Marcan Christ refused the Matthean Christ 
granted to the materialists ? 

Scholars are pretty well agreed that all the MSS. of Mark 
go back virtually to a single exemplar, and that this was 
providentially preserved through a period when its contents in 
their naive simplicity were unacceptable to the dogmatic 
Christianity of the time. The abrupt close of the gospel 
(Mark xvi. 8) has been attributed to the mutilation " acci- 
dental rather than intentional " of the single copy. I some- 
times think whether there is not another explanation possible. 
May not this early reverent writer approaching the crowning 
miracle of the Master's life, impressed by the mystery of 
things and the difficulty of describing them, have paused, 
intentionally, perhaps, relinquishing the revelation to another, or 
perhaps, as the Master described by him so often does, purposely 
consigning the matter to reflection, and reflection only ? 

There is a bust in the Uffizi at Florence of Marcus Junius 
Brutus left unfinished by Michael Angelo, but still beautiful 
in its suggestiveness. Someone, a friend, maybe, of the 
Medicis, wrote an epigram declaring that the sculptor had been 
hindered by his recollection of the man's baseness : to which in 
after days Lord Sandwich replied with another interpretation 

"Brutum effecisset sculptor ni mente recursat 

Multa viri virtus, sistit et obstupuit." 
VOL. VII. No. 4. 42 



658 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

And possibly the tyoftovvro -yap reflects not only the mind 
of trembling women, but the mind also of the awestruck 
evangelist who would rather leave incomplete than finish 
unworthily. 

I have lingered over the details of the problem as being in 
no hurry to wrestle with the central difficulty. The questions 
at issue may, perhaps, be formulated thus. What authority 
had Matthew to alter Mark ? Which of two varying accounts 
of what Jesus said or did is the more reliable ? Supposing we 
bring in that " blessed word " " development," does that of 
itself cause the rough places to become smooth ? Is there not 
a growth downward in the direction of ecclesiastical legend, as 
well as upward towards the region of spiritual purity ? Is it 
possible to determine between the evolution which is decadence 
and the evolution which is progress ? Suppose we try our 
hand among the main documents which go to make up the 
early books of the Old Testament. There we have J and E 
making on the whole for greater originality, D for a higher 
morality, P for fuller legality. Do we always of two blended 
or consecutive narratives prefer the older ? Does it not depend 
on the subject-matter of the paragraph ? When history is in 
question we endeavour to get as far back as possible towards 
the source. You can have no practical doubt, in ascertaining 
the origin of monarchy in Israel, that Samuel was the true 
kingmaker, with Jehovah's sanction, and anointed Saul in all 
good faith. It was only after sad experience that the idea of 
the people's pride and stubbornness arose, and was referred back. 
Still more when sacerdotal claims became prominent, you 
doubt the scholium of the chronicler (2 Chron. xxvi. 16 if.) 
on King Uzziah, interpreting the ancient phrase "the Lord 
smote him " (2 Kings xv. 5) into a token of divine wrath, and 
adding as its cause a violation of the priestly right to offer 
incense. But there are occasions when we look back to 
D or even P with more confidence than to J or E. These 
are the occasions when time and thought have worked 
towards a fuller understanding than was vouchsafed to the 



MATTHEW AND MARK 659 

-imitive scribe. In the centuries which elapsed between the 
original draft of the J account of creation and of the P 
account of creation, a process of refining legend had gone on, 
until we obtain a narrative, devoid of anthropomorphism, 
wonderful in divining the stages of God's handiwork and 
filling each stage with appropriate contents. Shall we not set 
this approach to scientific accuracy in the balance as against 
ecclesiastical romancing ? 

It comes then to this, that in studying the Hexateuch 
we are not content with following any one of its constituent 
documents : we weigh, we select, we compile for ourselves, 
noting the current opinion of each age, arriving at probabilities 
where we cannot reach certainties, through the process of 
comparison, which is in part literary, but in part also of a 
higher quality. 

Should we not extend this process to the Synoptic Gospels ? 
Mark furnishes the freshest, earliest impressions made by the 
prophet of Nazareth on his disciples : he pourtrays the growth 
of teaching, the growth of opposition the maturing of the 
Master's purpose. To Matthew were vouchsafed thoughts 
of a mystery underlying facts, which sometimes renders him 
indifferent to exactness in his facts ready to add, ready to 
omit, ready to vary. He is the commentator, not the 
historian: he inserts from his knowledge of later days, and 
sets words into the Master's mouth which it is hardly probable 
the Master spoke, but which may well have been within the 
Master's mind. The generation which condemned Bishop 
Colenso found offence in the thought that "the Lord spake 
unto Moses" could be other than literally true everywhere. 
Surely our generation will not shrink from applying to 
Matthew what we have learnt from the analysis of 
Deuteronomy, or insist on every phrase put into the Master's 
mouth having fallen from the Master's own lips ? The first 
evangelist himself will at times give a hint that you are not 
to press what he relates too precisely, as though it were an 
actual occurrence. The Transfiguration is a " vision " (Matt. 



660 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

xvii. 9), importing and imparting a secret. Shall we do amiss 
if we accept this clue towards the interpretation of what later 
on appears to be a portion of history " the graves were opened, 
and many bodies of the saints arose, and came out of the 
graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city 
and appeared to many"? (Matt, xxvii. 52). Can this be 
anything but a symbol of the transcendent power of the 
Cross ? Is it not an instance of those things which are not 
facts, but yet are true ? That way doubtless lies the creation 
of legends, but what more innocent in origin, or more instruc- 
tive, rightly understood ? I suggest once again a comparison 
with Old Testament documents. We prefer the first chapter 
of Genesis to the second, for it reveals the endeavour to purify 
the earlier account of its naive simplicities ; we distrust the 
same editor in the rendering of later history, for he inter- 
weaves with it notions derived from ceremonies or conceptions 
of his own epoch. St Matthew too has spiritual intuitions 
lacking to Mark ; he has also ecclesiastical prejudices born 
of a later age. 

I come back finally to the critical question, What authority 
had the first evangelist to alter for improvement or other- 
wise the received story of Jesus' life ? But it is urged that 
there was another received story. Yes ; that accounts for 
additions. I am speaking, however, of variations made in 
passages obviously copied from Mark. There was surely 
behind the uncertain personal Matthew some responsible 
power. Shakespeare believes in "the prophetic soul of the 
wide world dreaming on things to come " ; we may also 
conceive of the contemplative soul brooding on things past, 
and quickening them with newness of life. The Abb^ Loisy 
and those brave thinkers who strive with him to reconcile the 
old faith and the new criticism have no hesitation about the 
true organ of this world-soul. " L'Eglise a qualite pour 
degager constament du symbole ancien les applications que 
comporte une situation qui ne cesse pas de se renouveler." 
Those who sympathise with this writer blame the Church, not 



MATTHEW AND MARK 661 

for modifying too much, but for modifying too little ; for not 
continuing the necessary adaptations of Scripture to present- 
day needs. We may be able to accompany the Abbe a certain 
way assert that St Matthew represents ten years or so of 
Church inspiration working on the old materials ; we may 
proceed to say much the same of the further evolution wit- 
nessed in the Gospels of Luke and John. But how far dare 
we carry the process ? What of adaptations made in the later 
ages of the Church ? No doubt many fabricated gospels were 
suppressed, but what of the mountain of superstructure erected 
on the " Tu es Petrus," which is a single utterance in a single 
gospel ? Is this a legitimate expansion ? Is not some check 
to Church exuberance necessary? I know that the Abbe 
offers us a fairly wide definition of the Church " la conscience 
collective et permanente du Christianisme vivant." 1 But 
" vivant " is an ambiguous term, and perhaps Protestant critics 
may find themselves outside the pale. Can we escape in these 
matters from a large amount of individualism ? The Anglican 
Church pronounces on the errors of ecclesiastical bodies in the 
past : she yet imagines herself capable of expounding one place 
of Scripture so as not to be repugnant to another 2 an almost, 
if not quite, impossible task. We are therefore as those who 
must themselves construct some reasonable shelter against the 
storm that has levelled their old home of an infallible Bible. 
This is a co-operative labour, each one adding his own solid 
suggestion, and correcting his brother's flight of architectural 
fancy. 

B. H. ALFORD. 

LONDON. 

1 Autour dun Petit Livre, p. 59. 2 Art. XX. 



ON TWO DISLOCATIONS IN 
ST JOHN'S GOSPEL. 

THE REV. F. J. PAUL, M.A., B.D., 

Minister of the Irish Presbyterian Church, Bushmills. 

WHETHER there are dislocations in the Fourth Gospel has 
often been discussed. Particularly in two passages is there 
strong internal evidence of disarrangement : 

(A) One is ch. vii. 15-24. As has often been remarked 
(Wendt, Das Joh. Evan., pp. 79-86, or Moffatt, Hist. N.T., 
p. 690), this passage breaks the sequence where it occurs in 
the traditional order, but would fit in admirably at the close 
of ch. v. 

In ch. v. Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath day : this 
irritates the Jews : he defends himself by appealing to his 
Father and to the Scripture, citing Moses in defence of his 
actions : " If ye believed Moses, ye would believe me ; but if ye 
believe not his writings, how are ye to believe my words ? " 
(ch. v. 47). Chapter vii. 15 continues the narrative : the Jews 
are amazed at his learning, i.e. his knowledge of the Law, 
which enabled him " to hoist them with their own petard." 
Exactly the same points continue to be discussed in the 
following verses as were being discussed at the end of ch. v. 
God as the source of Jesus' teaching, Moses as the giver of 
the Law which they do not keep, their wish to slay Jesus, and 
Jesus' defence of himself against the charge of Sabbath 
desecration. Indeed, these verses seem to contain several 
direct references to ch. v. " Why are ye seeking to slay me ? " 

662 



DISLOCATIONS IN JOHN'S GOSPEL 663 

asks Jesus, referring to the murderous intentions of the Jews, 
about which the Evangelist tells us in ch. v. 18. "I have 
done one work and ye all are wondering" says he again, 
though, according to the traditional order, this one miracle 
had happened a considerable time before. 

Again, in its present context ch. vii. 15-24 is as unsuitable 
as it would be suitable at the end of ch. y. At the beginning 
of the seventh chapter Jesus is in retirement in Galilee on 
account of the hostility of the Jews in Jerusalem and Judasa. 
He rejects the suggestion of his brothers that he should go up 
openly to the approaching feast in Jerusalem. Only when the 
feast is half over does he make a public appearance in the 
Temple and begin to teach (ch. vii. 14). What surprises the 
Jerusalemites is the openness with which he is teaching, and 
the impunity he is enjoying, in spite of the hostility spoken of 
or implied, ch. vii. 1 and 10-13. (It should be noted that the 
hostility of these verses and of verses 25 ff. is not specially on 
account of Sabbath desecration, which is the chief burden of 
the charge against him in ch. v. and ch. vii. 15-24.) 

(B) The other dislocation is in chs. xiii.-xvi. (see Wendt, op. 
cit. 9 pp. 95-101). Chapter xiv. 25-31 is evidently valedictory. 
Jesus looks back on the words he has spoken to them in the 
past, and promises his Spirit to remind them of these in the 
future, now that he is going away himself. He leaves them 
his peace, and asks them not to be disheartened because he 
is departing. In future he will not talk much with them 
(though, in the traditional order, the greater part of his 
address, chs. xv. and xvi., is yet to come). Finally, because of 
the imminence of the end, he summons them to rise from 
table and go forth with him (v. 31). 

At several other places in these same chapters the results 
of disarrangement can be seen. In particular, ch. xvi. 5, 
"Now I go to him that sent me, and none of you asks, 
Whither goest thou ? " is unintelligible in its present position. 
This very question had been asked by Peter in ch. xiii. 36, 
" Lord, whither goest thou ? " and had been answered by Jesus. 



664 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Practically the same question was again put by Thomas, ch. 
xiv. 5, 1 and was again answered by Jesus. Evidently the order 
should be, that Jesus first gently reproached them for not 
having made this inquiry ; then Peter (ashamed, perhaps, that 
the thought of his own loss had so filled his heart as to make 
him forget to ask his Master whither he was going, till the 
Master himself suggested it) put the question which Jesus 
had been waiting for, that through it he might direct the 
minds of the disciples to things beyond their present sorrow. 
This sequence of thought would be obtained if chs. xv. and 
xvi. were taken from their present position and inserted after 
ch. xiii. 35. By this arrangement also ch. xiv. would be vale- 
dictory, as it ought to be, followed only by Christ's high- 
priestly prayer, ch. xvii. 

The internal evidence is so strong in favour of rearranging 
the passages referred to (chs. v.-vii. and chs. xiii.-xvi.), that 
one wonders a rearrangement has not been more generally 
accepted. The chief counter-argument (see Zahn, Einl. in d. 
N.T., ii. pp. 569) seems to be the improbability of such 
disorder being allowed to creep into either the autograph 
or a MS. sufficiently early and important to be the archetype 
of all extant MSS. and versions. But this improbability 
will be greatly lessened if it can be shown, from what is 
known about ancient MSS. and ancient bookmaking in general, 
how such dislocations may well have occurred. 

At first sight it may seem unlikely that the cause of these 
dislocations can be displacement of "leaves," inasmuch as 
books at the close of the first century of our era were always 
rolls ("volumes"), not codices (leaves bound together like 
modern books). But, as regards the date of the introduction of 
the codex-form, authorities differ. Kenyon ( Text. Crit., p. 34) 
thinks that although vellum codices were in use from the first 
century B.C., papyrus books, intended for publication, appeared 
in codex-form only from the third century onwards. Grenfell 
and Hunt (Oxy. Pap., ii.) seem to favour an earlier date, and 

1 " Lord, we know not whither thou goest." 



DISLOCATIONS IN JOHN'S GOSPEL 665 

certainly in a book whose provenance at any rate is the same 
as the Fourth Gospel we find reference to what must be a 
codex, Rev. v. 1 (see Holtzmann, EinL 9 p. 18) each of the 
seven seals sealing a part of the book. 

But even if the Fourth Gospel was originally written, as 
is highly probable, on a roll (a " volume "), and not on a codex, 
still this does not by any means preclude the possibility of 
loose leaves. 

1. In some cases at least the writing was first inscribed, by 
the author or his amanuensis, on loose leaves, and only when 
the writing was complete were these loose leaves gummed 
together into a roll (Ulpian, Digest, xxxii. 52. 5, "libri 
perscripti nondum conglutinati vel emendati "). 

2. Not all rolls were rolled ; some were folded (see Gardt- 
hausen, Griech. Palaeog., p. 58 sq.). Such a book might have 
come apart in leaves, owing to the papyrus giving way at the 
creases. 

3. But on the whole the most probable cause of these 
dislocations in the Fourth Gospel is the breaking up of the 
roll at a few places into its constituent plagulas 1 through the 
wear and tear of constant use. I believe the autograph, or 
at any rate the archetype, of all our MSS. and versions was 
a roll, with columns of such width and height that ch. vii. 
15-24 exactly filled two of them. Perhaps each of the 
plagulae (/coXX^/iara, the leaves out of which the roll was 
originally composed) had room enough for two columns 
(o-eXi'Ses), with, in some or all cases, a little over, so that, e.g., 
seven columns could be written on three pages (see Kenyon, 
Palceog. of the Papyri, p. 21 : " Alike in the best- written 
and in the worst-written MSS., the writing is frequently 
across the junctions"). But it is simpler to suppose that 
ch. vii. 15-24 filled two pages (plagulse) of a roll that had one 
column to each page. 

Evidently the two dislocations above referred to will give 

1 For the manufacture of papyrus, see Kenyon, Text. Crit., p. 19, or 
Gregory, Canon and Text, p. 301. 



666 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

a very searching test of the truth of this theory. For if the 
theory is true, then 

(a) The verses from behind which in each case the pages 

dropped out must have ended a column. 

(b) The dislocated passages themselves must be one or 

more full columns (pages). 

(c) The passages between where these dislocations fell out 

and where they were wrongly inserted must also be 

one or more full columns (pages). 

If, on examination, all these conditions are found fulfilled, 
the theory is strikingly confirmed. Now, if we take Nestle's 
Stuttgart edition of the New Testament, and if we suppose 
that each column (page) of the MS. contained 11 lines of this 
edition, then ch. vii. 15-24 which got displaced from the end 
of ch. v. contains exactly 22 lines (2 columns), and the other 
displaced passage, ch. xiii. 36 to end of ch. xiv., contains 
exactly 77 lines (7 columns). In fact, we are enabled to page 
the MS. throughout. The first five chapters contain exactly 
462 lines, i.e. 42 columns. Chapter vii. 15-24, which ought to 
come next, filled exactly, as stated above, 2 columns of the 
same size. Chapter vi. to ch. vii. 14, which came next, contains 
185 lines, only 2 lines short of 17 columns. Chapter vii. 25 
to ch. xiii. 35 contains 659J lines, only half a line short of 
60 columns. Chapter xv. 1 to ch. xvi. 33 contains 133| 
lines, less than 2 lines over 12 columns ; and, as already 
stated, ch. xiii. 36 to the end of ch. xiv. contains exactly 77 
lines (7 columns). I do not think it can be quite accidental 
that, of the six amounts here indicated, four are exactly com- 
mensurable with an amount of MS. that would fill eleven 
lines of Nestle, and the other two quantities are " off " by less 
than two lines. 

Perhaps these results would be clearer if exhibited in a 
tabular form : 

(1) Ch. i. 1 to end of ch. v filled columns (pages) 1 to 42. 

(2) Ch. vii. 15-24 filled what were, before dislocation, 

columns No. 43 and No. 44. 



DISLOCATIONS IN JOHN'S GOSPEL 667 

(3) Ch. vi. 1 to ch. vii. 14 filled originally columns 45 to 61. 

(4) Ch. vii. 25 to ch. xiii. 35 filled columns 62 to 121. 

(5) Ch. xv. 1 to end of ch. xvi. filled columns 122 to 133. 

(6) Ch. xiii. 36 to the end of ch. xiv. filled columns 134 to 

140 (there is no need to carry the pagination any 

further). 

Thus the first sixteen chapters of the Fourth Gospel were 
contained in columns (pages) 1-140. For some reason or 
other perhaps an accident, perhaps the wear and tear of 
constant use columns 43 and 44 became loose, and were 
inserted wrongly inserted at a break which had occurred 
between the 61st and 62nd columns. In like manner, columns 
134-140, becoming detached, were inserted again wrongly, 
though in this instance before their proper place in a break 
which had occurred between columns 121 and 122. 
. In an out-of-the-way place like this in which I am writing, 
it is impossible to test this theory as thoroughly as I could 
wish. Still, so far as I can see, the hypothesis does not involve 
anything inherently improbable. A similar hypothesis com- 
mands universal assent in the case of one or two writings of 
profane authors. And in the New Testament, in one other case 
at least, there is strong internal evidence that something similar 
has occurred. 2 Corinthians vi. 14-vii. 2 is manifestly out of 
place in its present context. It is a plausible conjecture that 
we have here a page from a lost letter of Paul to the 
Corinthians referred to in 1 Corinthians v. 9. Certainly the 
subject of 2 Cor. vi. 14 ff. is the same as the subject dealt with 
in the letter alluded to in 1 Cor. v. 9. 

But perhaps some palaeographers may object to the hypo- 
thesis on the ground that the pages (columns) presupposed 
are too small (eleven lines of Nestle). I find it difficult to 
obtain accurate information on this point ; but, so far as I can 
see, this objection has little weight. The Codex Regius, 
though it has two columns to the page, has only nine lines of 
Nestle to the column (two lines less than in the MS. of John, 
according to my hypothesis). Some time ago Dr Rendel Harris 



668 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

proposed a theory about " The New Testament Autographs," in 
which he suggested that the archetype of the Vatican MS. was 
one in which each column contained one-third of the material 
contained in a column of the Vatican MS., i.e. the columns of 
the archetype contained on an average less than seven lines of 
Nestle: similarly, the archetype of the Sinaitic MS. had in 
each of its columns one-quarter of what fills a column in this 
MS., i.e. the page of the archetype contained about four or 
five lines of Nestle. Kenyon (Text. Crit. 9 p. 30) criticises these 
suggestions adversely, chiefly because "columns of the size 
supposed by Mr Harris imply rolls of papyrus only 5 or 6 
inches in height ; but these are never found except in the case 
of the Herodas MS., which ... is evidently intended for 
a pocket volume." ..." The papyri discovered in Egypt 
show that even the poorest people used papyrus measuring 9 
or 10 inches in height, and upwards." From what is here 
stated and implied by Kenyon, one can easily see that 
eleven lines of Nestle would be about an average pagina, and 
would fill a plagula of average size in the first century A.D. 

Of course there are many seeming or real dislocations in 
the Fourth Gospel which my suggestion does not touch. If 
it explained two, though only two, it would not be quite 

valueless. 

F. J. PAUL. 

BUSHMILLS, IRELAND. 



DISCUSSIONS 

N.B. The contributions under this heading- refer to matters previously 
treated in the "Hibbert Journal." Reviews of books are not open 
to discussion. Criticism of any article will, as a rule, be limited to a 
single issue of the Journal. The discussion ends with a reply from 
the original writer. Ed. 

JESUS OR CHRIST. 

(Hibbert Journal, January 1909, p. 352.) 

I DO not presume to obtrude any criticism of the article which appeared 
in the January number. Its seriousness and sincerity deserve the most 
careful consideration and the most respectful answer. When a man has 
lost his foothold in the Christian faith and feels the things in which the 
Church has most surely believed breaking away from him, it is quite 
natural that he should show the extent of the desolation in a journal 
of free inquiry like the Hibbert , and should challenge some refutation or 
consolation from some competent pen. I have no doubt that such reply 
as the occasion demands will be forthcoming. 

But what I venture to do is to remove a misapprehension into which 
any reader who is unacquainted with Congregationalism might easily 
fall, owing to the singular designation of the writer of the article as 
" Congregational minister.'''' It might seem from this unusual descriptive 
title that he was communicating the view of Congregationalists. 

Congregationalism, however, is peculiar in this : it does not regard 
" orders " as indelible ; it has no such theory as " Once a clergyman always 
a clergyman."" A " minister " is one called by a given church to the office 
of pastor and teacher. When he ceases to stand in this relation to a 
church he ceases to be a " minister," except in the potential sense that 
he may be called to the ministry by another church in the future. Now 
the writer of this article has not been a minister in the Congregational 
sense for eleven years back. He might, of course, be called to the ministry 
of a church again, and then the title given him would cease to be mis- 
leading. But it must be evident to the reader of his most interesting and 
pathetic article that nothing is more unlikely than that he should seek, 
or than that a Congregational church should call him, to enter on the 
ministry again. 

All Congregationalists will sympathise with him, will respect his 
candour, admire his ability, and be grateful for his trenchant and fearless 

669 



670 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

challenge; but they would not regard him as a minister, except by courtesy. 
It is desirable that this should be understood at a time when many Chris- 
tians outside our pale are inclined to regard us as loose and latitudinarian, 
if not unbelieving and agnostic. 

ROBERT F. HORTON. 
HAMPSTEAD. 

[Editorial Note. The name of the Rev. R. Roberts will be found on the 
roll of Congregational ministers published in the Year Book. This Roll is 
described as that of ministers "officially recognised" by the Union. It is 
based on returns furnished by the County Unions of ministers officially re- 
cognised by them in their respective areas. The names and dates of the four 
pastorates held by Mr Roberts between 1876 and 1898 will be found under 
his name. Arrangements for a full discussion of the question raised by 
Mr Roberts are in progress.] 



INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION. 

(Hibbert Journal, October 1908, p. 76, and January 1909, p. 437.) 

As the only thing Mr Jerome can apparently find to criticise in my views 
on Infallibility and Toleration as expressed in last October's Hibbert 
Journal is their inconsistency with views he believes me to have expressed 
formerly, and as I certainly do not claim any miraculous exemption, a 
priori, from the possibility of inconsistency, the charge is worth examining. 
It appears to arise out of the fact that Mr Jerome evidently has no 
taste for satire, and hence no sympathy with those who feel the diffi- 
culty of not writing it. This must render the study of my works a 
very arduous one to him, and it is no wonder that he sometimes fails 
to take their meaning. The present is clearly a case in point. When, 
in Humanism, pp. 201-202, I was describing from the inside and 
accounting for the intolerant practices of unregenerate human societies, 
I was not approving of them, and still less of the far cruder procedure of 
natural selection which forms the ultimate check on social follies. I was 
merely pointing out how insuperable an obstacle they formed to a universal 
acceptance of a pessimistic view of the value of knowledge, and of a denial 
that knowledge was in principle good and satisfactory. But I did not 
declare the methods for coping with such pessimism which are now in 
vogue in society and in nature to be the most rational and satisfactory. 
Nor did I say a word against social toleration. What I declared to be 
irrational was not toleration, but obstinate adherence to views whose 
nature rendered them incapable of surviving. For it is unreasonable to 
sacrifice oneself to impossible views and to perish with them. It is also 
quite unnecessary. For it is the function of human reason (which is a 
very different thing from the Pure Reason of rationalism) to foresee and 



DISCUSSIONS 671 

forewarn us of the fatal consequences of foolish beliefs, and so to forearm 
us. We are thus enabled to escape, by dropping the pernicious views 
and suppressing the instincts associated with them. The argument in 
Humanism, p. 60 (which also Mr Jerome might have cited for his inter- 
pretation), similarly justifies coercion only in the case of persons so brutally 
stupid that they cannot listen to reason, though it certainly does not deny 
that in extremer cases a certain amount of such coercion may still be 
requisite. But it has never entered my head to imagine that intellectualist 
metaphysics were socially mischievous enough to require forcible repression ; 
they may even be relatively good things as compared with the things their 
perpetrators might do otherwise. And if I had believed in the argu- 
mentum baculinnm I should have been inconsistent in arguing against 
them in the way I have done. 

So much for the argument in Humanism. In the paper criticised it 
was merely carried one step farther, and completed by the suggestion of 
a positive and better alternative to the methods hitherto in vogue. I 
pointed out that persuasion is a humaner, quicker, and more efficacious 
method than persecution of inducing a reasonable willingness to abandon 
deleterious views. I also showed that whereas the new theory of truth 
removed the incompatibility of divergent views and destroyed the duty to 
persecute in the conscience of the dogmatist, the claim to infallibility 
inherent in the absolutist theory constantly acted as a social irritant and 
was the chief source of the past intolerance which Mr Jerome and I join 
in deploring. It seems clear to me, therefore, that there has been, not 
inconsistency, but progress in my argument, and I trust that this point 
has been made sufficiently clear to all (except those who are metaphysicians 
enough to hold that all progress is necessarily inconsistency). For it is 
really a matter of considerable social importance that philosophy should 
at length relieve mankind from the duty and imputation of congenital 
intolerance, and that the widespread tendency to dogmatism should be 
shown to be essentially an acquired characteristic, entailed by an 
unfortunate acceptance of an erroneous theory of knowledge. 

F. C. S. SCHILLER. 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD. 



PROFESSOR JAMES ON FECHNER'S PHILOSOPHY. 

(Hibbert Journal, January 1909, p. 278.) 

AFTER reading Professor James's splendid interpretation of Fechner's 
" Doctrine of the Earth-Soul " in the January number, I regret that these 
philosophers did not develop this line of thought to its conclusion, so as 
to give a fuller idea of the ultimate soul of the universe and our relation 
to it. On page 293 the article states that Fechner, in order to escape an 



672 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

infinitely long summation, posits a God indefinite in feature. At several 
places Professor James half confesses a disapproval of the monistic 
tendency of Fechner's theory, and it is therefore not surprising that 
Professor James himself does not attempt to present a more systematic 
conception of soul-life in its totality. At any rate, one gets the impression 
from his article that with the ascending steps in the synthesis of soul-life 
there is not a corresponding increase in coherence and organisation. 

I fail to understand why a more systematic and unitary view of 
consciousness need be regarded as a victory for monism, or even for 
psycho-physical parallelism. The psychical is but one of a number of 
features of reality, and a systematic account would only partially exhaust 
the nature of this one feature. There would be found in every constituent 
member the element of variety no less pronounced than that of uniformity. 

I was impressed with the idea that every higher order of consciousness 
is capable of surveying and comprehending the faculties of the lower orders, 
although the view in the opposite direction is at least partially closed. 
Now, following this line, do we not approach in the final synthesis a 
supreme consciousness that combines the faculties of all the lower ones, 
including man, in one great centralised and intensified system ? 

This view, however, is in sharp contrast with that of the materialistic 
philosophers, who attribute to man the highest form of intelligence. They 
have a magnificent theory of a material universe, infinite in extent and 
ruled throughout by inexorable laws, but they make the psychical pheno- 
mena everywhere subordinate to the physical. I am not advocating the 
theory of psycho-physical parallelism. We may regard the universe as 
permeated throughout by both the physical and the psychical character- 
istics without regarding the two as being parallel in their manifestations ; 
admitting, of course, that they are closely interrelated. Nor do I look 
upon these two characteristics as being the only fundamental ones. 

If we now turn to view the nature of God such as is indicated by a 
further development of Fechner's theory, are we not overwhelmed by the 
wealth and grandeur of His attributes ? He must possess at least all the 
faculties of the human soul, yet in infinitely greater intensity and develop- 
ment. He must understand our prayers and our needs far better than we 
are able to express them, although this does not imply that we should not 
appeal to Him, since intellectual intercourse with Him largely constitutes 
the bonds of relationship and the channels of interaction. 

For many of us, these views, which now seem possible, perhaps come 
too late to be practically beneficial in any great degree. The faculties 
that must be employed, having been so long in disuse, are atrophied, and 
much difficulty may be experienced in the attempt to revive them. Hence 
the failure to realise immediate benefits in all cases must not be con- 
sidered a refutation of the theory. Personally, I have recently adopted 
these conclusions, but I cannot say that I have acquired the habits of 
conduct implied by them. The vision is clear enough, but it shines as 
yet at a great distance and with a cold radiance. 



DISCUSSIONS 673 

Fechner's theory also appears to throw some light on the problem of 
evil. If the higher orders of consciousness are constituted so largely by 
the lower ones, they, too, must possess the dual nature, and in the final 
synthesis we therefore have the warring powers of good and evil on an 
infinitely vaster scale. We may abstract from this whole the elements 
that make for development and progress and name them God, but there 
remain the forces that tend toward retrogression and disintegration, and 
the interaction between the opposing powers may constitute the very 
essence of existence itself. 

CYRUS H. ESHLEMAN. 
GRAND HAVEN, MICH. 



CRITICISMS OF THE NORTH ARABIAN THEORY. 

(Hibbert Journal, October 1908, p. 132, and January 1909, p. 441.) 

DR ASTLEY is not depreciated by me as a new man ; surely it is a great 
advantage to be " the newest writer." But I do not think he was wise in 
referring me to Professor Flinders Petrie, for the reasons already given, 
which are not touched on in Dr Astley 's paper. I am still more sorry that 
he refers to the " man in the street," because this course is only fitted to 
heighten prejudice, as we have seen before now in the controversies on the 
Pentateuch, the Psalms, and Isaiah. There are many true things which 
have long been scouted, but at last, perhaps slightly modified, become 
generally accepted. It would not have done for the pioneers of those truths 
to " call a halt," as Dr Astley would wish me to do. This bright writer 
himself affirms that quite possibly North Arabia may have "had more 
influence upon Canaan and upon Israel than has hitherto (?) been supposed." 
If that concession should be made by others, to whom will this be due ? 
Dr Astley speaks of my " unreserved acceptance and promulgation of this 
novel view" (of an independent land of Muzri and of Jerahmeelite or 
Asshurite prominence), but he should have known that I am much more 
than a promulgator. Among the points in which Professor Winckler is 
less advanced than I am is precisely that discovery of Jerahmeelite or 
Asshurite prominence, which is chiefly mine, but partly Rommel's. An- 
other point is the extent to which the confusion of Mizrim and Mizraim 
has gone in the Hebrew text. Dr Astley may comprehend the situation 
as regards this point better if he refers to The Decline and Fall of the 
Kingdom of Judah, Introd., p. xli. Dr Astley, then, does think that 
there may be something in my somewhat elaborate investigations, even 
though I may exaggerate. Nevertheless he objects to the sub-title of my 
article of last October, "A Mistaken Name for a Genuine Thing," and thinks 
I assume without proof that my theory reposes on " genuine " facts. He 
VOL. VII. No. 3. 43 



674 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

fails to notice that I have myself explained this short phrase in my article. 
We want a title for the new theory that shall adequately express its 
reference. There are other ethnic or regional names which have as much 
right as Jerahmeelite to figure in the title. The only accurate title which 
corresponds to the genuine thing is " The North Arabian." 

On textual criticism, which has a good deal to do with the new theory, 
Dr Astley shows no sign of having yet earned the right to speak ; what 
he does say reminds me too much of the " man in the street," who is 
unacquainted alike with my principles and with the mode of their applica- 
tion. The old methods of textual criticism are not worn out, but require 
to be supplemented by new ones, derived from the study of classified 
textual phenomena, and of the habits of the scribes. Such a study would 
have preserved Dr Astley (who is primarily an anthropologist) from the 
portentous statement that Raham or Jarham cannot be shortened into 
Ham, et cetera. 

The remark that my view about Mizrim is like always interpreting 
"Scotland" in British history as meaning "Ireland" (Scotia) is character- 
istic of an outsider. Most of our documents are Judahite, the work of 
the men who were most preoccupied with North Arabia. The fall of 
Samaria was a literary as well as a political calamity (see Decline and Fall, 
p. xxxvii). " Babylonian inscriptions " is a slip ; it should be " Assyrian 
inscriptions." 

Dr Astley wishes, most gracefully, to be " reckoned among my (former) 
disciples." It is true that where there is a personal bond there is less risk 
than there would otherwise be of any fatal misapprehension on either side. 
Another young and rising scholar, who thinks that I have partly mis- 
understood and over severely criticised (Dr A. T. Olmstead), is at any rate 
the disciple of a friend of mine (Professor Schmidt of Cornell University), 
and so I hope to have not much difficulty in removing his causes for com- 
plaint. I should mention that he has very courteously written his 
objections for my own eye ; and that, in order to avoid the risks incident to 
controversy, he has left it entirely to me to arrange the mode of explana- 
tion. His book, Western Asia in the Days of Sargon of Assyria (New 
York : Henry Holt & Company, 1908), came into my hands only just in 
time for me to use it, so that I fear I may not have done it the full justice 
which I would gladly have rendered. Dr Olmstead, on his side, informs 
me that the work had to be suddenly finished to avoid a long delay. I 
think it only fair to admit that my inference from a passage in his book, 
that he felt a "natural prejudice" against Winckler^s theory of an 
independent state of Muzri, was mistaken. What he referred to was the 
improbable historical results which seemed to him to follow from that 
theory. For his own part he has had no " conservative " bias against 
Winckler's theory as he% understood it. " No doubt," he says, " it will 
surprise you, but it is nevertheless true that when we began to explore the 
Negeb, I was ' almost persuaded ' by at least Professor Winckler's theory. 
But a study of the actual topography forced me to change my mind, much 



DISCUSSIONS 675 

against my wishes, for such a conclusion largely reduced the value of our 
results."" I have at any rate not omitted in my article to mention the 
disappointment of Professor Schmidt as regards the discovery of Tells in 
the Negeb, and made such observations as the case seemed to me then to 
require. I have also fully admitted that the complete solution of the 
complicated problem of the N. Arabian Muzri has not yet been reached. 
My own competence is specially, I suppose, in Old Testament textual 
matters, which, in my opinion, have been somewhat inadequately treated, 
but I do not think I can be accused of having neglected the work of 
travellers and explorers from C. T. Beke to Professor N. Schmidt and his 
party, and I hope to learn more from them in the future. 

The point on which I spoke perhaps a little too strongly (for I seem 
to have unwillingly hurt Dr Olmstead) relates to the right understanding 
of Winckler's opinion as to the extent of his supposed state of Musri. 
From vol. i. of the third edition of Schrader's work on the Cuneiform 
Inscriptions and the Old Testament (1902) there seems to me to be no 
doubt as to the wide range which he gave his Musri, which, while it 
included the Negeb, also comprehended el-Ola, and one of whose towns 
was Yathrib (found by Winckler in the famous passage Hos. v. 13). 
Dr Olmstead, however, repeatedly speaks in terms of great surprise 
of the " Negeb Musri " of Winckler, and I could not help thinking that 
this mistake vitiated his whole argument. In a second letter to me he 
admits " the el-Ola slip," but tells me that he has never denied that " you 
all make the Negeb extend east of the Arabah " ; that it appears to him 
" that both of you throw the weight on the Negeb side," and that when 
he believed in it himself it was as a " Negeb theory." He adds that " if 
the Negeb is excluded, it is far more difficult to make your point, for 
most of the Musri passages must, it seems to me, on topographical 
indications, be placed on the Negeb or beyond in Egypt." He also holds 
that both Winckler and I have sometimes expressed ourselves in a way 
favourable to a " Negeb Musri." 

I think myself that in discussing the matter with opponents one may 
sometimes have understated what one really means, but also that a 
thorough study of Winckler's most definite and authoritative statements 
would have corrected any misapprehension of his theory. I am sorry that 
Dr Olmstead's work had to be finished suddenly, partly because it is clear 
that when he wrote it he had not had time to revise and extend his 
knowledge of Winckler's publications, and to read my own works subse- 
quent to the articles " Mizraim " and " Negeb " in the Encyclopedia Biblica. 
His own book, however, is so original, so full of archaeological facts and 
acute criticism, that small excuse is necessary for any possible accidental 
shortcomings. Meantime my own opposition to a "Negeb Musri," as I 
understand the phrase, continues to be strong, and the matter is really of 
much importance. 

T. K. CHEYNE. 



REVIEWS 



Miscellanies, Fourth Series. By John Morley. Macmillan, 1908. 

THE Miscellanies consist of these seven essays, which have appeared during 
the last twelve years : " Machiavelli," the Romanes Lecture, 1897 ; 
"Guicciardini"; "A New Calendar of Great Men," on the Positivist Calendar, 
edited by Mr Frederic Harrison ; " John Stuart Mill : An Anniversary," 
&causerie published in the Times, May 1906; "Lecky on Democracy," a 
review of the historian's Democracy and Liberty ; " A Historical Romance," 
a review of Mr Frederic Harrison's Theophano; and "Democracy and 
Reaction," a review of Professor L. T. Hobhouse's book of that title, 
published in 1904. 

It is pleasant, little as it is necessary, to preface a consideration of 
these essays by a tribute to the distinction of mind and style which 
informs this, as it has informed all Lord Morley's previous work. The 
honoured place which he holds in literature is to no small an extent due 
to the sense of worthiness he imparts to his subjects, which comes of the 
worthiness of his own regard of them. It is equally pleasant, if it is no 
more necessary, to express one's admiration of the great range of reading 
and study demonstrated afresh in this collection. Much has he travelled 
in the realms of gold, and the wealth of illustration, from history and 
literature, with which he enriches his pages, strikes us all the more in that 
it always appears ready to hand, never as laboriously sought for. To 
those who would travel with him there could be few better guides to the 
general features of a landscape. And this gives him an appeal even when 
he treats of matters of which there are some, and these perhaps the most 
important, aspects to which he does less than justice : as particularly in 
the sphere of philosophic and aesthetic criticism. Many who have enjoyed 
his Rousseau will have felt that they have left it without getting a close 
grip of the merits of the Social Contract. Where in his literary criticism, 
as in his essay on Wordsworth and in certain of his observations here on 
some of the heroes of the Comtist Calendar, he treads the same ground as 
Matthew Arnold, there can be little doubt which is the finer and more 
penetrative critic. But this will hardly detract from that wide appeal he 
makes by giving us the impression that he is quite at home wherever he 
is journeying. And his readers could not find a more cultured and 
charming host, especially in the regions of French and Italian history and 

876 



MORLEY'S MISCELLANIES 677 

politics, where Lord Morley is most thoroughly at home, and his guests 
may confess to feeling least so. 

But if there is no cause for disappointment here, we may be allowed 
to utter a small complaint in a matter which has probably struck most of 
Lord Morley's readers before, and which rather forces itself on their 
attention in some of these essays. We feel at times inclined to say to 
him, as Nestor said to Diomede, that " he has not reached the full end 
of his words, 1 " or, in less classical language, that he will not let himself go. 
He is, as we all know, both a man of letters and a man of affairs, and of 
great distinction in both. The charge has been brought against him, as 
a statesman with how great or how little justice it would be out of place 
here to inquire that he is apt to be " viewy " (a word he would loathe) 
or "doctrinaire" (a word he would approve). With regard to his 
writings we feel, if it may be so expressed, that the man of affairs is 
chiefly to be seen in the rigour with which he is excluded. And this is 
to be regretted where we may think that his experience would have been 
of real assistance to the writer, and have enabled him to speak out with 
more force and directness. Readers of the Life of Gladstone have remarked 
on the air of detachment which Lord Morley keeps even when he is treating 
of events of which he might justly say, " Quorum pars magna fui," and 
have expressed a disappointment which need not be attributed to their 
own weakness that so severe a restraint should have been exercised. So 
in some of these essays we feel that the fighting faith of the politician is 
kept too much in the background that it may not intrude upon the 
reflections of the writer. Thus, in his criticism of Lecky^s Democracy and 
Liberty the only polemical essay in the book Lord Morley sets the 
historian right on several matters of fact, on which Lecky, in his undue 
zeal to damn democracy and all its works, has demonstrably misinformed 
himself; and he points out the untrustworthiness of the conclusions that 
have been drawn therefrom. But we feel all the time that Lecky has a 
better case against democracy than that which Lord Morley concerns 
himself to refute, and that Lord Morley would have made a far better 
case for democracy if he had allowed himself to write with the freedom 
and force which, we may conjecture, he would have employed if he had 
spoken of it as a politician. The review of Democracy and Reaction pro- 
vides a still clearer instance. Professor Hobhouse's book was a very strong 
indictment of certain principles, or denials of principle, which, he contended, 
were poisoning our social and political life. Especially was it an indictment 
of the imperialism the fruits of which were to be seen in the South African 
war. It was essentially a tract for the time, though a work of far more 
than ephemeral value. Lord Morley pays a generous tribute to the merit 
of the book, and reviews it in detail. But we feel that he is constantly 
shifting his ground to look at democracy in some other light, and is rarely 
at an issue with Professor Hobhouse. Interesting as are the considerations 
which he raises, we think that Professor Hobhouse's issues are more 
important, and certainly more pressing. And then, as we remark Lord 



678 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Morley's philosophic detachment, we may smile to remember how, as a 
politician, he was ready to incur much temporary unpopularity for the 
advocacy of those very principles which Professor Hobhouse so strongly 
expresses in his book. 

But it would be churlish to complain further, if one who has done so 
much to reconcile in his work the opposition between the contemplative 
and the practical life should sometimes, in going to his books, shake the 
dust of the conflict so thoroughly from him that some of its fire leaves 
him also. 

There can be little question that the most interesting of these essays 
are those on Machiavelli and Guicciardini. The " Machiavelli " is indeed 
masterly, the " Guicciardini " scarcely less admirable, though its subject 
makes less appeal to the imagination. In each Lord Morley presents to 
us, and presents with extraordinary sympathy and clearness, the picture 
of a man who has done service to his state in circumstances which were not 
calculated to foster a belief in the goodness of mankind or the efficacy of 
high principles of conduct, and has set himself, in an unwilling retirement, 
the task of drawing his philosophy from his experiences. Each, like a 
gambler who has gone beaten from his game, goes over it again, explaining 
his system, for the benefit of those who may prove more fortunate players. 
That the system, which rests on expediency divorced from an ethical 
standard, has been condemned by the opinion of mankind is perhaps a 
trite reflection, as it would be also to reflect that, if not so openly advo- 
cated, it has not ceased to be practised. As we read Lord Morley^s 
luminous summary of Machiavelirs political philosophy, we feel that his 
position is really the same as that which Socrates attacks in the Gorgias 
of Plato, and that it will not be till humanity has shown itself capable of 
rising to the high doctrine of the Gorgias, and contenting itself with 
victories which are not of this world, that we may look for a full abjura- 
tion of the Machiavellian system. That Lord Morley, in reviewing the 
career and influence of Machiavelli in the light of considerations such as 
these, does so in no trite or uninspired fashion, need not be said. He 
does equal justice to Machiavelli and Machiavellianism. As he shows us 
the great Florentine statesman and thinker outside that strange atmosphere 
of diabolism which so long surrounded his memory, he makes us see how 
fine and striking a figure he was how admirable, if we could but grant 
his main postulate, his tenets of statesmanship. How far removed from 
the conventional picture of Machiavelli as a spirit of evil is this indication 
of the spirit in which he entered on his De Principalibus, quoted by Lord 
Morley from a letter : 

" After dinner I go back to the inn, where I generally find the host 
and a butcher, a miller and a pair of bakers. With these companions I 
play the fool all day at cards or backgammon : a thousand squabbles, a 
thousand insults and abusive dialogues take place, while we haggle over 
a farthing, and shout loud enough to be heard from San Casciano. But 
when evening falls, I go home and enter my writing-room. On the 



MORLEY'S MISCELLANIES 679 

threshold I put off my country habit, filthy with mud and mire, and array 
myself in royal courtly garments ; thus worthily attired I make my en- 
trance into the ancient courts of the men of old, where they receive me 
with love, and where I feed upon that food which only is my own, and 
for which I was born. I feel no shame in conversing with them and asking 
them the reasons of their actions. They, moved by their humanity, 
make answer." 

That their answers are hardly marked by humanity will be the 
impression given by the extracts from the Prince, such as : 

" There are some good qualities that the new ruler need not have ; 
yet he should seem to have them. It is well to appear merciful, faithful, 
religious, and it is well to be so. Religion is the most necessary of all 
for a prince to seek credit for. But the new prince should know how to 
change to the contrary of these things, when they are in the way of the 
public good." 

If we might admit that the public good could be so achieved, and that 
it would not be coloured by the methods by which it was sought, then 
we should be on our way to give our adhesion to Machiavelli's doctrine of 
statesmanship : a doctrine, we might say, of " efficiency " against principle, 
if we should not be thought thereby to be inviting a comparison with 
present-day politics, from which Lord Morley would warn us as forbidden 
ground. But it is, as Lord Morley claims, in our repudiation of this 
assumption that we have been moving away from Machiavelli. He had, 
he says, as good a heart as could be made out of brains : " Yet at the 
bottom of all the confused clamour against him, people knew what they 
meant, and their instinct was not unsound. Mankind, and well they 
know it, are far too profoundly concerned in right and wrong, in mercy 
and cruelty, in justice and oppression, to favour a teacher who, even for 
a scientific purpose of his own, forgets the awful difference." To those 
who may think that Machiavellian principles have rather ceased to be 
justified than to be acted upon, Lord Morley has some comfort to offer. 
He contends that moral considerations tend steadily, however slowly, to 
influence the action of states; and we think he is justified in regarding 
Machiavellian principles in the light of the wisdom of our day, to " com- 
pare them with the bettering of the time " ; though, as he well concludes, 
" It is true to say that Machiavelli represents certain living forces in our 
actual world ; . . . this is because energy, force, will, violence, still keep 
alive in the world their resistance to the control of justice and conscience, 
humanity and right." 

Guicciardini is chiefly known from the story of the criminal who was 
allowed to choose between Guicciardini's history and the galleys, and 
chose the history, till he came to the war of Pisa, when he went back to 
the oar. Lord Morley shows us how unfair it is that this fable should 
be the last word of him. His experiences had been not unlike those of 
Machiavelli, and his meditations upon them have much the same spirit. 
But he has not the force and brilliancy of his great contemporary. The 



680 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Ricordi, from which Lord Morley gives us copious extracts, "some 
sensible, some cunning, some a little odious," as he describes them, show 
Guicciardini to be a sort of moralising Machiavelli, shrewd, but not wise 
or highly inspired. 

Of the remaining essays it must suffice to say that the causerie on Mill 
is a much-needed appreciation of a great man, whose work was perhaps 
more justly estimated by the thinkers of his own day than it has been 
lately ; that the *' Calendar of Great Men " only makes us wish that Lord 
Morley had allowed himself a little more space to treat of the many 
characters he passes in review ; and that in " Theophano " he is at home 
with Mr Frederic Harrison in a brief survey of an interesting period of 
the Byzantine Empire. 

LAWRENCE SOLOMON. 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. 



First and Last Things : A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life. By 
H. G. Wells. London : Constable. Pp. xii + 24-6. 

The Venture of Rational Faith. By Margaret Benson. London : 
Macmillan & Co. Pp. xix + 317. 

" ONE thing I claim,' 1 says Mr Wells : " I have got my beliefs and theories 
out of my life and not fitted them to its circumstances." "We cannot 
believe in anything," says Miss Benson, "however true, which has no 
connection with what we know to be real." 

This claim to stand upon reality is, of course, one which very often 
meets us in the preface of religious books ; and in many persons it creates 
an attitude of cynicism towards all such literature. Yet this literary 
cynicism is surely a hopeless and blameworthy thing, for it is really a 
cynicism towards life. The lesson of life is that we should not be 
disappointed in it ; that our souls should not turn sour ; that we should 
go on thinking men better than they are. And so too with books, 
particularly religious books. They are part and parcel of the general 
disappointingness of life ; and the only true critic of them is he who has 
resolved not to be disappointed, who insists on believing them better than 
they are, who judges them by their good things, with an eye for those 
occasional brilliant or pathetic strokes of nature which redeem dulness 
or silliness. 

There is no silliness either in First and Last Things or in The 
Venture of Rational Faith. In both, on the other hand, there is a good 
deal that is rather dull; yet at the same time much that is true and 
telling, and that excites sympathy. I do not wish with either book to 
over-emphasise the dulness of certain parts, for Mr Wells' book is one 
that should interest everybody, and Miss Benson's, though not an 
important book, may interest a good many. But if I begin by saying 
how it is that a good deal of either book appears to me dull, I think that 



FAITH AND LIFE 681 

I can, in this way, best give the reader an idea of the kind of book each 
is without doing injustice to the writer. I will speak first of Miss Benson's 
book, and, since I do not regard it as important, I will speak briefly. 

Miss Benson begins, like Mr Wells, with a plea for reality ; and I have 
sufficient sympathy for her book to feel that everything in it is very real for 
her. But when I ask myself what it all comes to in the end, I find that it 
comes to just this average educated Christianity pliLS average Idealist 
philosophy. These two in their conjunction constitute for Miss Benson 
the most real creed going. For me this merely means that Miss Benson has 
added together two dying faiths, and taken the result for a rule of life. But 
for her and, as I know, for many others the result is something most living 
and real. But how ? I do not, of course, expect this " how " to be plainly 
set forth for me in logical terms. But I have, I think, a right to expect 
hints and flashes and errant suggestions of it. And these I do not seem 
to get from Miss Benson. She never seems to me to touch the quick of 
human thought and feeling. The claim she makes for herself is, it is 
true, modest ; she claims to write only an average book for average 
educated people. Her average, let me say gladly, is high. But I fear 
that the stuff of her book is conventional, and that the book itself is 
mostly dull for the reason that she nowhere gives us to see how the con- 
ventionalities which she handles have come to be to her so real. I will 
add that it is not a book written in a hurry, that wide reading has gone 
to it, and that it is clear and forcible. It has a good many memorable 
sentences. " ' I have swept the heavens with my telescope and have not 
found God, 1 said Laplace. As well might a blind man say, 'I have 
listened day and night and have not heard scarlet ' " (p. 13). " There is no 
incredulity like the incredulity of the ignorant" (p. 15). "Morality rises 
like a tide over the unmoral world, as life comes up over the inorganic " 
(p. 187). " Recreation is certainly expedient, but it needs a very profound 
mind not to lose some sense of reality when attention is much centred on 
a golf-ball " (Pref., x.). These, and other things in the book, are well and 
forcibly said, and are worth a good many pages of conventional philosophy. 

I am not sure that I have any right to say that any part of Mr Wells'" 
book is dull : for that Mr Wells should be dull is in itself so interesting ; 
and the reason why parts of First and Last Things are dull is very 
interesting. Mr Wells has set out to say exactly what he thinks. He 
has a number of things on his mind, and he determines to get them all 
off it. He resolves to put down everything and extenuate nothing. He is 
absolutely frank, plain, sincere. But frankness, plainness, and sincerity 
so absolute must necessarily involve a man in bursts of dulness. He 
wants to put down everything, and he supposes that the way to do that 
is to leave out nothing. But it is not so. Homer has really put down 
everything about Achilles : but what a lot he has left out ! Mr Wells 
will no doubt say that he is not Achilles : he is not, that is, an artistic 
creation, but a real and plain man to be viewed unvarnished. And yet 
surely every attempt at self-expression, even our ordinary talk, is in some 



682 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

degree an artistic thing, obeying certain laws of art : we get necessarily 
further and further away from our natural and actual self as we bring 
that nearer and nearer to someone else. If we put ourselves down in speech 
or on paper just as we are, we fail, we do not "carry,"" we are dull. And 
Mr Wells has put himself down just as he is, without selection ; and for 
this utter sincerity he has had to pay the price of being often dull. 

Nevertheless, First and Last Things is an impressive book. Uneven 
in quality and containing a great deal that was not worth saying, it 
nevertheless has so much in it that is penetrating, first-hand, human, 
poignant there is such an absence of anything factitious or pretentious, 
that a critic must be very cold indeed whom it does not again and again 
warm and touch. It is a book which has grown, as Mr Wells says, out of 
its writer's experience. I may perhaps be forgiven for saying, since Mr 
Wells is so frank about himself, that it shares some of the limitations of 
that experience. I will give one or two illustrations of what I mean. 
Mr Wells attacks (pp. 174-5) with vigour and acumen the code of 
" honour."" " I set no greater value on unblemished honour than I do 
on purity. I never yet met a man who talked proudly of his honour 
who did not end by cheating or trying to cheat me, nor a code of honour 
that did not impress me as a conspiracy against the common welfare and 
purpose in life. There is honour among thieves, and I think it might 
well end there as an obligation in conduct." " I have never been able to 
understand the sentimental spectacle of sons toiling dreadfully and 
wasting themselves upon mere money-making to save the secret of a 
father's peculations, ... or men conspiring to weave a wide and 
mischievous net of lies to save the 'honour' of a woman. 1 " When he 
says that he has " never been able to understand " these things, Mr Wells 
admits, I fancy, more than he means to. Here, as elsewhere, he hopelessly 
underestimates the value of a class tradition. There is a lot of silliness, 
of course, about " honour " (though I have never met people who talked 
about their honour). Yet of how many great and beneficent lives has not 
this sentiment of honour been, as it were, the very lodestar ? Nor is it so 
" aristocratic " a thing as Mr Wells supposes. If it is perhaps all the 
morality which the aristocratic classes have, yet in poor and ignorant 
men also it has surely often kindled great endeavours. 

Again, when he speaks of churches, creeds and subscription, etc., Mr 
Wells seems to me to speak from a limited point of view. He speaks 
perhaps to the rampant anti-clerical or militant agnostic. Such persons 
doubtless need conciliating and taming ; and it is perhaps good that they 
should be told by a plain and freethinking man like Mr Wells to go to 
church, to swallow formulas, to get consolation from the Mass, to remain 
in, but not of, the communion of faithful Christians. Mr Wells, I fancy, 
even urges the non-believer to be a preacher in the Church. Now this sort 
of advice sends me sick and shivering. That is because I live among 
young men with whom such teaching is very popular and for whom it is 
very dangerous. They do not believe in the Resurrection, but they are 



FAITH AND LIFE 683 

interested in social reform. Accordingly, they rush into the Christian 
Social Union or the priesthood, without taking time to be fair with their 
own souls, and without ever once thinking sincerely and ultimately upon 
subjects the most important. And being clever and interesting and 
enthusiastic, they mislead others. I speak from my experience, Mr Wells 
from his. The young men I speak of read Mr Wells. I hope he will 
remember them in his next book. 

" Getting near to the keen edge of life " : that is a phrase of Mr Wells' 
own (p. 103) which caught me in passing. It is a pretty good description 
of what Mr Wells is after, in this book and others. In a collapse of 
beliefs, he believes in life. That is what he is driving at in everything he 
says. " Much more to me than the desire to live is the desire to taste 
life. I am not happy till I have done and felt things. I want to get as 
near as I can to the thrill of a dog going into a fight or the delight of a 
bird in the air. And not simply in the heroic field of war and air do I 
want to understand. I want to know something of the jolly, wholesome 
satisfaction that a hungry pig must find in its wash " (pp. 59, 60). There 
is no doubt extravagance, revolt, whimsicality in all that. Yet it is 
somehow biting and salted and finely cogent. It has the note of a healthy 
howling against humbug. " Howling n is perhaps not the word. Nietzsche 
howls, Shaw howls and both unhealthily against humbug. Mr Wells 
whoops with something between wrath and delight. He has got his 
teeth into life, where other men are pawing and fumbling it. He is going 
to have no nonsense. He has seen more kinds of life than most men who 
take to literature ; and when he uses words they are going to stand for 
things that he has felt or known or suspected. 

I have said that Mr Wells is not like Nietzsche or Shaw. Nor, again, 
is he like Plato ; and I am sorry to find that he has rather begun to think 
that he is. Let me mention one or two persons whom he is like. 

First, he is rather like Moses. " God said unto Moses, I am that I 
am ; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am 
hath sent me unto you." Well, Mr Wells slays a few Egyptians, and is, 
like Moses, often perhaps overhasty in a good many things. But he has 
taken the shoes from off his feet reverently upon really holy ground ; and 
above all he seems to have been sent to a world that hates facts by " I am."" 
" I am " hath sent him ; and he is necessarily worth listening to. 

Secondly, he reminds me, oddly enough, of Lord Chesterfield. Never 
able to transcend class prejudice, with a keen eye for surface values, yet 
fundamentally sincere and free from cant, with an assured knowledge of 
the kind of life he speaks of, with a touch of genuine chivalry to these 
qualities, which he shares with a writer whom he probably despises, Mr 
Wells adds, as Chesterfield does, one yet more important the desire to 
relate literature to actual life. " I wish," says Lord Chesterfield to his son, 
" to combine in you two things rarely combined in any of my countrymen, 
books and the world." Mr Wells is a fine democratic combination of those 
two things. 



684 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

And then, of course, Mr Wells reminds me of two friends of his, of whom 
he speaks in this book tenderly and affectingly (pp. 238-241), Stevenson and 
Henley. He has not Stevenson's infinite delicacy : on the other hand, his 
optimism is less of a literary artifice, is more downright and real. He has 
not a certain titanic quality that Henley had : but then he tears himself 
less upon the bars of life, he is less mangled. But he is in the straight line 
of development from these two : he is making towards a more natural and 
quickened life. 

I have mentioned Plato. Has Mr Wells ever read the Greater Hippias ? 
There is a sentence of Hippias, in any case, in that dialogue which is a fair 
summary of Mr Wells' Credo. I offer it to Mr Wells as a motto for his 
second edition : " I say then that always for every man everywhere this is 
the finest effect : to have enough to live on, to have good health, to be 
respected by one's fellow-citizens and having all that to come to old age, 
and having given noble burial to one's parents to be buried at last oneself 
by one's children with honour and circumstance." 

To many, no doubt, that seems a pagan and rather thin ideal. Yet that 
particular sentence, with its direct and unsophisticated thought, always 
blows up to me like a clear breeze from the sea, freshening the conventional 
shore-atmosphere of our flaccid modern moralising. 

H. W. GARROD. 
OXFORD. 



Towards Social Reform. By Canon and Mrs S. A. Barnett. 
Pp. 352. London : T. Fisher Unwin. 

THIS volume is the mature product of an almost unique experience in 
philanthropic and social work. It embodies that sober idealism which 
went to the making of Toynbee Hall. It represents a combination of 
knowledge, sympathy, and what, for lack of a better term, may be called 
business method, acquired in active service by two lives distinguished by 
rare devotion and humanest wisdom. The reading of it has been a 
refreshment, and the memory of it will be grateful. 

It may be feared that the modern mind, jaded to boredom by the 
furious output of volumes on social questions, and plunged into a darker 
depression by the present necessity of mastering the reports of the Poor 
Law Commission, is not likely to be stimulated by the prospect of reading 
a mere collection of papers and addresses of various dates and subjects. 
Yet, if it could be aroused to overcome its primary disinclination, it would 
find here something more valuable than the ripe practical suggestions that 
appear on every page, namely, a prevailing steadiness of moral outlook, a 
cheerful sanity of judgment, and a hopeful spirit of faith and good-will 
which cannot fail to brighten the baffled student and draw the despairing 
social worker into fresh and more sanguine effort. 

Like the Labour Party, the authors decline to draw up a programme 



TOWARDS SOCIAL REFORM 685 

beyond present needs and possibilities. " We appear, therefore, in these 
papers neither as Individualists nor as Socialists, but simply as advocating 
actions which lie in the way towards Social Reform." And again : " We 
would, in a word, limit State action wherever it interferes with the growth 
of manhood and womanhood in the nation, and enlarge its actions 
wherever it could assist that growth." They may be said to be preaching 
to the hard and dry individualist, who fears any final or ideal scheme of a 
co-operative commonwealth, a socialistic sermon from the text, " Without 
a vision the people perish " ; and to the revolutionary socialist, for whom 
every palliative mean is only a mean palliative, an individualistic sermon 
from the text, " The eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth." They 
test every proposal by its ability to bring out the powers of being in the 
people it reaches, by its likelihood to increase the sum of peace and good- 
will among men. They believe that the application of that test must con- 
demn many institutions, and also demand a further expenditure which ought 
to satisfy even a socialist. One feels that, whenever the authors seem to 
be speaking with the somewhat chilling accent of the Charity Organisation 
Society, it is always in the interests of a deeper moral socialism ; and 
whenever they seem to be in complete accord with the demands of modern 
socialists^ as, for example, on " universal " old-age pensions it is always in 
the interests of a stronger individualism of personal resource, initiative, and 
responsibility. If on one page it is said rather loosely that " long experience 
has shown that it is only ' one by one ' that the mass of human beings can be 
raised," this is corrected on another page, where we read that " the Spirit 
of Christ requires that the Christian community should act as a community 
to raise the fallen." If we are told that love without thought is weakness, 
it is only after we have been told that thought without love is often 
brutal ; and both assertions only prepare us for the fuller truth that the 
supreme need is a public opinion which is directed by a thinking love. 

It is, however, only incidentally that the writers touch on theories. The 
weary strife, always tending to the merest logomachy, between individual- 
ism and socialism finds no place in this eminently practical volume. If its 
reconciliation or transcendence in terms of human well-being is not already 
assumed, at least its significance as a strife is found within the very spirit 
and process of social reform. 

In view of the reports of the Poor Law Commission, it is interesting to 
notice the attack on institutions. " Institutions are prejudicial to strength 
of character." Again : " Institutions preach sermons in stones against the 
virtue of independence." But we are not left with a blank and dis- 
couraging non possumus. When they condemn institutions (in connection 
with pauperism), it is in order that humaner principles may come into 
play, that the poor may be " boarded out," and so transplanted into a new 
but also a natural habitat of home-life in the country. The chapter on 
the workhouse and the whole section on poverty anticipate some of the 
severest strictures of the Minority Report. " The workhouse stands for the 
punishment of poverty. It is akin to a prison, and its inmates feel them- 



686 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

selves treated as criminals when they have committed no crime." They do 
not hesitate to say that "the workhouse of to-day helps to demoralise 
society. 1 '' Porters in uniform like prison warders, rooms called wards, tasks 
chosen not because of their use but because of their distastefulness, cranks 
to turn, stones to break, oakum to pick, inhuman segregation and a no less 
inhuman aggregation these are some of the degrading factors in work- 
house life. The reform advocated is the reconstruction of what is now a 
prison into a school ; and the object must be, not a deterrent punishment 
of the poor and the incapable, but their training and preparation for 
industrial efficiency. 

This human and humanising plea runs through the whole volume. 
It is the motive of the chapters which deal with education and recreation, 
and which amplify and develop a passage in the introduction : " The 
pleasure which excites which, starting from outside the man, stimulates 
his sensations is not as real as the pleasure which, starting from within, 
kindles his whole being. It is better to teach people to enjoy themselves 
than to provide amusements, better to teach them to play than to watch 
others play, better to give them a new interest than an empty holiday.' 1 '' 

But, beyond the light of common sense thrown on particular problems, 
we have the warm glow of an undiscouraged idealism. The reader is made 
to feel that these economic and social difficulties are not in the nature of 
things insoluble, that it is only our cowardice or indolence or moral infidelity 
that baulks us. The idealism is convincing precisely because it is not 
Utopian, because it is in continuous contact with the facts of real life 
and actual human nature. When theory appears, it is theory thickened 
with the stuff of experience and effort, and vital with a sincere but un- 
paraded sympathy with the hard lives of known men and women. What 
comes out most clearly is that the social reformer can never learn his 
business from books, not even from such good books as this, nor yet from 
sitting on Distress and Decision Committees, but must come face to 
face and heart to heart with the people whom he would help to redeem, 
and who would redeem him in turn from a too proud and academic 
detachment. We understand one of the main sources of the power of 
this volume, as well as the importance of the influence of neighbourhood, 
when it is Canon Barnett himself who makes the startling confession : 
" I find for myself that when I am living in the country I cannot speak 
or write about the poor as I can when I am living in Whitechapel." 
Wealth, not poverty, is the national danger: for it is wealth wealth 
clotted in perilous masses that dehumanises men and takes them out of 
physical and moral neighbourhood with their fellows. 

Mr W. H. Davies, the " Super-Tramp," put this aspect of the case very 
simply and plainly in his poem on " Money" : 

" So, when I hear these poor ones laugh, 
And see the rich ones coldly frown 
Poor men, think I, need not go up 

So much as rich men should come down." 



TOWARDS SOCIAL REFORM 687 

It is the sense of this truth that gives rise to "settlements," which 
are not what some cynic described as pathetic efforts on the part of the 
West-Enders to make the East-Enders a little more like themselves, so 
much as a means whereby East-Enders may contribute some of their 
own humanity and mutual loyalty and helpfulness to the West-Enders, 
and thus give even more than they receive. 

There is one statement in this book that provokes contradiction. 
In welcoming the Labour Party as the coming power, Canon Barnett 
says that it " brings an element of reality into a political struggle which 
now partakes too much of the nature of a game." He claims that it 
" has faith in its demands and has therefore a force which is not exercised 
by parties who elaborate programmes with an eye to votes and put their 
trust in 'tactics.' But and this is the serious matter the Labour 
Party which has thought and faith has not knowledge." This was written 
in 1906. It seems, in the light of later experience, the merest justice to 
say that in Parliamentary discussions the Labour Party has shown itself 
to be at least as well equipped with relevant and even expert knowledge 
as either of the two great historic parties. Indeed, in dealing with 
questions like trades 1 disputes, old-age pensions, unemployment, and all 
such topics as are covered by this book, the accredited representatives 
of the Trades Union and Labour movement show a closer acquaintance 
with the problems and a firmer intellectual grip of the significant facts 
than statesmen of far higher repute. 

J. M. LLOYD THOMAS. 
NOTTINGHAM. 



The Mystical Element of Religion. By Baron F. von Hiigel. Two vols. 
Pp, xvii + 466 + 421 ; 8vo. London : Dent & Co., 1908. 

IF there is a certain amount of inevitable confusion in these 887 pages, it 
is from the fact that they are all too few for the wealth of research and 
learning that is crowded into them. In connection with mysticism they 
deal with all the profoundest problems of religious philosophy with 
institutionalism, science, criticism, psychophysics, asceticism, morality, the 
problems of evil, of pure love, of quietism, of immanence, personality, 
pantheism, eschatology. All this is packed into the second volume, and 
treated in the light of the best that has been written on these subjects in 
the past and present and this by one who has not merely appropriated 
this mass of thought, but shaped it into a system of his own. 

In the first volume we have an example of that kind of critical 
biography which stands to biography proper much as what is called 
scientific history stands to history proper. The old hagiographers began 
with an intuitive estimate of the human and moral significance of the 
saint, and selected their biographical facts accordingly. Here we learn 
to proceed inversely, and control our thirst for edification. And the result 
is more edifying. For we are less moved and helped by the floating 



688 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

unearthly ideal, than by the ideal incarnate and concrete, with all its 
limitations and imperfect self-utterance. St Catherine of Genoa is pre- 
sented to us in these pages as the subject-matter or experimental basis of 
a study of mysticism. The ideal mystic (one, that is, in whom the 
mystical element of religion is perfectly balanced by the institutional and 
intellectual elements) does not exist ; and in St Catherine both these 
complementary elements are somewhat defective. In her, we get a mystic 
who, though Christian and Catholic, owes strangely little to the Church 
and its theology, and whose inspiration was largely Neo-Platonic. As a 
Catholic she is of course influenced by the incarnational and sacramental 
principles of that religion ; but one feels that, for her, the flesh is not the 
vehicle and organ, but only the symbol of the spirit, something to be 
discarded as soon as the reality is apprehended. Here she is at the 
opposite pole to pseudo-mystics or visionaries of the type of Sister 
Catherine Emmerich, in whom the mystical element of religion is over- 
whelmed rather than balanced by the institutional, and for whom the 
passion of Christ seems little more than an earthly tragedy of blood and 
tears, unillumined by any eternal and metaphysical significance. Between 
these two poles we find the more truly Catholic type of Dame Juliana 
of Norwich, for whom the flesh is luminous with the spirit as with another 
aspect of the same reality ; for whom every moment of the sacred passion 
is no mere symbol, but a revelation of the Divine love. In her concep- 
tion of the spiritual she is hardly less influenced than St Catherine of Genoa 
by the all-pervading Platonic tradition through the later Scriptures and 
the patristic writings; but she conceives its relation to the flesh in the 
friendly manner of the synoptic gospels, rather than in Alexandrine 
fashion. She is at once profoundly spiritual and profoundly human ; 
whereas, were it only in her total lack of humour, we feel that St Catherine 
is a little bit inhuman. 

Baron von Hugel has studied the latter in the spirit of his motto: 
"Grant unto men, O Lord, to perceive in little things the indications, 
common-seeming though they be, of things both small and great " 
(St Augustine) in the conscientious, scrupulous spirit of science, which 
to loose thinkers seems tiresome and pedantic. 

The labour he has bestowed in the Appendix on the growth of 
her Life and Legend will not seem idle to the few who have come to 
realise the priceless value of the smallest scrap of historical truth. They 
will find in it, as in the whole of the biography, an object-lesson in 
that critical art which is helping us to tunnel a way to the open through 
the mountainous lies of the loose-thinking past. A sympathy at once with 
the spirit of science and the spirit of mysticism is rare. Both in practice 
and theory Baron von Hugel shows that it is not paradoxical that they 
need and supplement one another. Science, the supposed enemy of religion, 
is really its best friend and benefactor ; not merely as the obvious foe of 
superstition and pseudo-mysticism, but as importing a constituent element 
of a healthy and full-bodied religious sentiment. There is more than cant in 



MYSTICISM IN RELIGION 689 

the claims of Positivism to produce an ethical type from which Christians 
might have something to learn in the way of modesty, humility, and self- 
effacement. Yet this it does, not in virtue of what it denies, but of what it 
affirms, and of what Christians ignore rather than deny. The decentralising 
of our earth was a good purge for human conceit, and we are greater for the 
absence of that littleness. But the scientific outlook will not profit us 
morally and spiritually except in conjunction with the mystical outlook. 
We need faith, hope, and love to lift us out of the void of our individual 
nothingness. Each outlook is partial and, so far as it claims to be complete, 
mendacious. Nor can we ever reconcile them, since we cannot stand at the 
point where they blend. All life, according to the author, consists in a 
patient struggle with irreconcilables a progressive unifying of parts that 
will never fit perfectly. Woe to us if we yield to tempting simplifications 
and cast out recalcitrant but vital elements ! 

The underlying Weltanschauung reminds us in many ways of Bergson, 
to whom the author is indebted for some of his explicit opinions. It 
suggests a divine fecundity prolific in all senses and directions, not so 
much working according to some logical plan in view of some one final 
resultant or end, as struggling to reconcile the inevitable conflicts of 
these infinitely multitudinous and various existences. Whether in the 
individual soul, or in society, or in the world of life, or in the world at 
large, we have this same problem of wasteful overcrowding, of conflicting 
ends and intentions. The care for each, which is undoubted, seems to be 
incompatible with the care for all. That at least is what we see. If the 
problem is solved or soluble from some higher standpoint, that is matter 
for faith, not for vision ; for endeavour, not for attainment. 

The author is more explicitly with Boutroux and Bergson in his 
attitude towards the determinism of Nature, which he regards as relative, 
not absolute ; provisional, not ultimate. Relative to man's brief duration 
and narrow experience, Nature seems in many ways uniform and immutable, 
and thereby warrants common sense and science in the working hypothesis 
of an absolute uniformity and determinism. But the hypothesis may 
not be projected into the real world where the principle of creative growth 
and variation is only limited by the past and the given in the sense 
that it must include what it adds to. 

If these volumes are not the last word, they are certainly the fullest 
word that has been spoken on the subject of mysticism. They include 
and add to all that has yet been said, and no future addition will be solid 
that does not include and take account of them. They are difficult 
reading as well as difficult writing, and make no pretence of closing 
eternal questions. G. TYRRELL. 

LONDON. 



Vol.. VII. No. 3, 44 



690 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Modernism The Jowett lectures for 1908. By Paul Sabatier. 
T. Fisher Unwin, 1908. 

THE average English reader will probably, at the first glance, think that 
there is a little too much of what Carlyle called " rose-pink " about 
M. Paul Sabatier's three lectures on Modernism, here excellently translated 
by Mr C. A. Miles. The leaders of the new movement are always palpi- 
tating with the finer emotions ; they are full of " fervour and power"" ; they 
are, in spite of appearances, " the most devoted children " of the Papacy ; 
they are widely diffused and work in different spheres, yet " they know each 
other by instinct, draw together, and become one heart and one soul""; 
" they advance calmly and courageously to face life, the whole of life." They 
never appear to fall into sophisms or violences (yet these traits are 
certainly not quite absent from the writings of von Hiigel, Houtin, and 
others); their opponents, on the other hand, are uniformly ignorant, 
bigoted, and mean. In other words, this book is not a critical study of 
the Modernist movement, but an apologia, and an apologia written by a 
Frenchman, and, if not a Catholic, yet a writer imbued with the Catholic 
tradition and Catholic feeling. But taking it frankly on that basis, let 
us say at once that it is an admirable and eloquent plea, written by a 
scholar of lofty intelligence on a theme which he has made his own by 
sympathy and by knowledge. It may be commended to all readers who 
wish to gain a general idea of the movement of which it treats without 
an extensive study of the French, Italian, and German authorities. 

To the present reviewer, as no doubt to most English students, the 
Modernist movement appeared at first as a desperate and rather dis- 
ingenuous attempt to reconcile Catholicism with intellectual liberty. 
Anyone trained in the individualist traditions of Protestantism must 
necessarily at the outset feel a little repelled by the attitude of men who 
apparently cling to the advantages, spiritual and other, of communion 
with a mighty ecclesiastical organisation, while claiming the right to reject 
what have always been understood to be its most vital and fundamental 
principles. Protestants in general have no such temptations as Catholics 
have to play fast and loose with an official creed, and consequently any 
suspicion of playing fast and loose is apt to be one of the most injurious 
they can entertain in regard to a new movement of thought. 

Of this feeling, this prejudice, about the Modernist movement, M. 
Sabatier is evidently well aware, and he addresses himself pointedly to its 
removal. Mr Lilley, in his recent volume on " Modernism," had, of course, 
done the same thing, but Sabatier's work has naturally more unity and 
force though certainly not more knowledge or more sympathy than 
Mr Lilley's collection of articles, written as they were on various occasions, 
and at long intervals of time. But does Sabatier make out his case ? 
The question is one of cardinal importance, for the whole future history 
of the movement may depend on whether the Modernists are, as they 
claim, at the very heart of the Catholic conception, or whether Pius X. is. 



MODERNISM 691 

us quote one of the passages in which Sabatier deals with this 
question : 

" The strength of his [Loisy's] position and the Modernists'* is that their 
scientific honesty, far from leading them to a bare negation of religion, 
brings them, on the contrary, to firm scientific ground, on which religious 
thought can develop with a vigour, security, independence, and boldness 
such as the world has never seen. . . . 

"Anti-religious rationalism and orthodox intellectualism they are 
more opposed in appearance than reality both start from the same idea 
of the absolute. Modernism moves on a very different plane the plane 
of reality, of life, of experience ; the Modernist has no more need to believe 
his Church to be metaphysically infallible than he has to believe his 
parents to be impeccable or omniscient in order to love and obey them. 
It is indeed true that mankind's great witnesses to the religious life seem 
to him much closer to us common men ; but if they appear less majestic, 
they become more real, and a truer view is gained of them. 

" The Modernist has a sense of the life of the Church in our day, and 
he enters vigorously into it. He does not in the least share the Protestant 
idea an idea which from Protestantism has everywhere filtered through 
into Catholicism that revelation ceased with the composition of the 
sacred books, that the great epochs of religious thought are closed, and 
that all we have now to do is to live on the interest of our spiritual 
heritage." 

This conception of the Modernist position, with all its implications, 
does certainly put another face upon the matter. The Modernists, being 
men mostly of the Latin race and trained in the Catholic tradition, 
naturally realise more deeply than do most non-Catholic Christians the 
need and value to the individul of membership in a great religious 
communion. But the need and value are the same for all. Were 
it only "two or three" souls, a gathering together seems a necessary 
part of all religion. Now the essence of Modernism, according to 
Sabatier, is not to divide but to comprehend, to gather together. It is 
immaterial whether, as one would be apt to conclude from the pages of 
Sabatier and of Lilley, Modernism has its root in a new religious philosophy 
and has only come into conflict with the Church by applying this philosophy 
to questions of biblical criticism, or whether, as one would rather gather 
from the Modernists themselves (notably from their famous " Programme " 
written in reply to the Encyclical Pascendi), the philosophy is, historically, 
an attempt to make room for the conclusions to which biblical studies have 
forced them. The precise door through which the mind enters into a new 
truth is of little consequence. The great fact is, that by taking away from 
dogma and from history all absolute value for the religious life, they have 
opened the way to a conception of relative value which saves as nothing 
else can possibly save the Church's doctrine of the continuity of 
inspiration, and reconciles it with the scientific conception of the con- 
tinuity of organic growth. Such, at least, is Sabatier's conception of the 



692 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Modernist position ; but it must be noted that he is painting with very 
broad and summary strokes a number of more or less tentative and 
sometimes even divergent views on the part of various Modernist thinkers. 
The religious philosophy of Blondel and Laberthoniere is expressly dis- 
avowed by Loisy (Simples Reflexions, p. 17) ; and, again, Loisy 's idea of 
the true via media " through Scylla and Charybdis " appears to me to 
bear much more resemblance to Auguste Sabatier's conception of the vital 
growth of dogma than it does to TyrrelPs elaborately worked-out com- 
parison of dogma and religious history to a painting or a romance which 
takes up a matter of objective fact and rehandles it with an artistic 
intention (Scylla and Charybdis, pp. 244-253). All these tentatives, however, 
do indisputably meet at one point the point of real importance, the point 
on which all Modernists are in agreement. Their trait commun is, in 
Loisy's words, "le desir d'adapter la religion catholique aux besoins 
intellectuels, moraux, sociaux du temps present. 11 And their common 
method is to find an escape from the bondage of " the letter that killeth," 
by denying to the letter the character of absolute truth. There seems, to 
an outsider at least, nothing anti-Catholic in this position ; in fact, it 
brings the catholicity of Catholicism for the first time clearly into sight. 
The famous Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, is, after all, a 
thoroughly Modernist criterion of truth ; it is a criterion which never 
can be absolute until Time has run out. 

Sabatier, I think, then, has fairly made out his case. But if that is so, 
the issue of the Modernist movement becomes one of immense practical 
importance. What divides men in religion is the fact that they worship 
different idols. Modernism would abolish all the idols all, as objects of 
worship, and yet retain them all as symbols and expressions of the divine. 
In other words, Christianity is neither theology nor history, but a mani- 
festation of spiritual life, and one which has never ceased to well up from 
its hidden source. Were but a Pope to be found who could embrace this 
profound conception, the reunion of Christendom under his hegemony 
might soon become more than a pious dream. 

Sabatier contrasts German Protestantism very effectively with Latin 
Catholicism, as illustrated respectively by Harnack and Loisy. It should 
not, however, be forgotten that that great thinker and originator, the 
German pastor's son, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, had fully grasped the root 
of the Modernist position over a hundred years ago. In conflict at once 
with Rationalism and with Dogmatism, Lessing, as a theologian, occupied 
'a position which no one in his day could understand. He opposed the one 
because it tried to establish arbitrary canons of religious truth and false- 
hood ; he opposed the other because it fettered research and inquiry. 
" Education is revelation for the individual revelation is education for 
the race, and it is still in progress " the basis of the Modernist movement 
is there. What is called Newmanism was a timid and limited application 
of the same principle. In Modernism it appears with breadth and fulness, 
and takes formal possession of a great section of Christian thought. 



MODERNISM 693 

Sabatier has no doubt of the success of the movement, and the con- 
sequent rehabilitation of Christianity in a form capable of appealing 
alike to the philosopher and to the peasant. Yet it may be gravely 
doubted whether it can effect this in and through the Church in which it 
originated. Christianity could only have arisen from Judaism, but it 
could not transform Judaism ; it was thrust out. Like Judaism, the 
Church has come to be a machine for the exaltation of a priestly caste 
every dogma, every ordinance, every superstition makes in that direction. 
But Modernism is totally incompatible with a system in which a Pope can 
forbid his clergy to express themselves, and the clergy can forbid the laity 
to study and to speculate. It is certainly a hopeful sign that so many of 
the leading Modernists are clerics. Yet the spectacle of a sacerdotal body, 
as a whole, abandoning pretensions to magical powers and to super- 
naturally derived authority in obedience to an influx of new thought, and 
to that alone, is one which the history of religion can hardly show an 
example. It would be nothing less than a miracle if it happened now. 
Yet, after all, miracles do happen. Life is the great miracle, and 
Modernism is life. In any case it seems likely that we are witnessing the 
first scenes of a drama in the spiritual history of man, strongly resembling, 
in its essential features, that which was played in the Roman world during 
the first centuries of Christianity, and, perhaps, no less pregnant with 
far-reaching consequences. 

T. W. ROLLESTON. 

GLENEALY, Co. WICKLOW. 



Lollardy and the Reformation in England. By James Gairdner, C.B., 
Hon. LL.D. Edin. Macmillan. Two vols. 

WHILE no student can afford to neglect this book, none can safely accept 
even its detailed statements without careful verification, quite apart from 
its somewhat paradoxical conclusions. Previous reviewers have perhaps 
sufficiently emphasised the fact that Dr Gairdner's main contentions, if 
true, would make the Reformation a great historical mystery ; but nobody, 
so far as I know, has yet pointed out in detail the insecure documentary 
foundations on which these contentions are mainly based. It is the more 
important, therefore, to insist here upon the careless use of important 
evidence, which must rob this book, however learned and able otherwise, of 
all pretensions to a definitive history. The first few pages, dealing with 
royal supremacy and WyclinVs doctrines, show us at once what Dr 
Gairdner's methods will be. His confused and somewhat contradictory 
arguments on the former point would take too long to expose here; 
but his special pleading is well illustrated in Wycliffe's case by the para- 
graph in which he tries to minimise the significance of the reformer's 
theological innovations by arguing (inter alia) that he repudiated 
transubstantiation "only in his later years" a plea which would reduce 



694 THE HiBBERT JOURNAL 

Home Rule to a mere accident in Gladstone's career, and rule out Christ's 
public ministry altogether (i. 12). Similarly, in Tyndale's case, Dr 
Gairdner not only takes for gospel nearly all More's bitter accusations, 
but adds a further injustice of his own (i. 370). " He preserved a positive 
mistranslation of one text .... [John v. 39] .... whereas the verb is 
plainly in the indicative mood." Many readers will be struck by Dr 
Gairdner's rashness in dogmatising upon a point deliberately left open by 
Westcott ; but few would guess that this translation " Search ye the 
Scriptures," which is here made such a crime against Tyndale, is in fact 
that adopted by St Augustine, by Bishop Pecock and More in their anti- 
Lollard controversies, by the Romanist Douay Version, and even in the 
seventeenth century by the great patristic summarist, Cornelius a Lapide. 
In plain words, Tyndale is unmercifully belaboured because his translation 
here agrees with that of orthodox Catholics, and only fails to anticipate 
the objections of Dr Gairdner and other learned heretics in the distant 
future ! Dr Gairdner habitually quotes the words of orthodox contro- 
versialists as conclusive against the Lollards : a great, and perhaps even the 
greater, part of his evidence comes from such tainted sources. He accepts 
unhesitatingly the immoralities imputed to them by their opponents, but 
makes no attempt to collect the numerous cases in which these latter con- 
fessed that Lollard teachers succeeded partly in virtue of their " outward 
appearance of holiness." In short, here as elsewhere, he treats the detested 
heretics as Gibbon treated the early Christians ; and in several important 
passages which I have no space to deal with here, he judges them by laws 
under which Christ and His apostles could not have been acquitted. 

Moreover, though Dr Gairdner is the greatest living authority on the 
state papers of Henry VIII.'s reign, yet even in that period he walks far 
less surely among ecclesiastical affairs, and his scholarship leaves a good 
deal to be desired in the earlier period, with which he deals now for the 
first time. Much of importance has escaped him even in Gascoigne and 
Wilkins ; he altogether ignores Gower with a number of essential witnesses 
whom I shall presently have to quote ; and he knows little of the episcopal 
registers. This last defect vitiates seriously his attempt to argue from 
the growing rarity of public executions to the almost total extinction of 
Lollardy itself. Such an argument a silentio is always dangerous, and far 
more so in the hands of a writer who has not nearly exhausted the available 
sources. Special students will find frequent indications of unfamiliarity 
with the peculiar mediaeval connotations of certain words, and still more 
significant lapses in matters of custom or law. For instance, all that 
Dr Gairdner says about the law of burning for heresy, and the delivery to 
the secular arm, shows not only great partiality, but a most confused 
notion of the actual facts. Especially unfair is his treatment of this 
subject in his summary of M ore's Dialogue (I. 575) ; and, indeed, More's 
whole book, if he had read it with more care, might have suggested very 
serious modifications of his main thesis. 

It may indeed seem rash to suggest that Dr Gairdner has not read care- 



fully a work 



LOLLARDY 695 



illy a work which he summarises at so great length (thirty-five very closely 
printed pages) ; but anyone else who takes the pains to institute a thorough 
comparison will probably agree with me. On p. 574 he hardly notices one 
of the most important chapters in the book (book iii. chap. 16), which, if 
he had printed it in full side by side with his own chapter on the " Story 
of the English Bible," would have given the reader a far clearer idea of the 
real facts, and flatly contradicted other passages in which Dr Gairdner has 
attempted to justify the attitude of the clergy towards Bible-reading. 
On p. 558 he omits a passage which throws considerable doubt on the 
efficacy of monastic discipline (More's Works, p. 135s). On p. 575 he 
summarises, quite falsely, that the heretics were "never visited with 
temporal punishments till they became violent themselves " : whereas even 
the controversialist More only ventures to plead that there was "little 
violence," and admits that " they were put sometimes to silence upon pain 
of forfeiture of certain money 11 an admission which, to the modern mind, 
would amply justify the heretics in finally " becoming violent themselves." 
But Dr Gairdner's worst misrepresentation is in his abstract of book iii. 
chap. 12. In this abstract, the very damning criticisms which More makes 
in his own person upon the clergy of his day are represented as coming only 
from his somewhat heretically inclined adversary ; and Dr Gairdner further 
misrepresents them by adding an innuendo of his own, which betrays an 
imperfect comprehension of that early monasticism to which More evidently 
alludes. Yet, in this part of the Dialogue at least, the text is so plain as 
to leave no excuse whatever for so serious a misrepresentation ; and here 
again, if the summarist had found room to print the whole chapter m 
extenso, it would have given a very different complexion to his whole book. 
It is the more important to insist upon all this because it is not 
sporadic, but characteristic. Dr Gairdner's summaries of Walden's and 
Pecock's treatises are extremely misleading ; and on the monastic question 
the capital importance of which he rightly emphasises his treatment of 
the evidence is still worse. He implies, to begin with, that Walden and 
Pecock answered the Lollards fully on this point ; yet nothing is more 
remarkable than their doubtful attitude towards accusations which certainly 
were definite and frequent enough. Pecock's halting and half-hearted 
defence of the monks, in particular, is far more significant to an un- 
prejudiced mind than the plain accusations of Wycliffe. Again, when 
Dr Gairdner comes to deal directly with this subject (ii. 44) he tells us 
practically nothing new, and contents himself with re-slaying the already 
slain royal visitors. Moreover, even here he is betrayed by Abbot 
Gasquet into serious errors, into which no special student ought to fall 
nowadays. He twice imputes to mere bad faith on Henry's part disciplinary 
regulations which rested on orthodox time-honoured monastic principles 
(ii. 59 and 77). He does not, indeed, garble Fuller's evidence quite so 
hopelessly as Abbot Gasquet ; yet his appeal to it is most misleading 
throughout, and culminates in the suppression of the essential evidence 
about Sir William Stanley (ii. 71). Moreover, he does not hint, though 



696 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

he ought to know, that even orthodox visitors had frequently treated nuns 
with scarcely less brutality than this which is attributed by extremely 
suspicious witnesses to Henry's emissaries ; and he might well have 
remembered that such scandals are still repeated and believed among the 
natives who so bitterly resented our own measures for the repression of 
the Bombay plague. 

If Dr Gairdner is so unsafe on his own peculiar ground, he is far more 
so when he ventures further abroad, and attempts to justify the monas- 
teries by comparing the reports of the royal visitors with those of their 
orthodox predecessors (appendix, ii. 95). Such a comparison, unless 
accurate, is worse than valueless ; and this appendix is hopelessly inaccurate. 
To begin with, he practically neglects altogether the overwhelming 
evidence borne by these orthodox visitors for that waste, mismanagement, 
and peculation upon which the Statute of Suppression laid almost as much 
stress as on immoralities. Again, his precis of the Wymondham visita- 
tion of 1514 omits (i.) that the Prior had tried to kill two other monks 
besides the one he mentions ; (ii.) that one of the monks was sometimes 
drunken ; (iii.) and was suspected of adultery with one Poynter's wife ; (iv.) 
that another monk who was now most vehemently suspected with different 
women became prior of the monastery six years later ; and (v.) that yet 
another had broken the seal of confession a crime more heinous in those 
days than adultery. In his precis of the Norwich cathedral visitation of 
1526 there are omissions almost or quite as serious, apart from a blunder 
as to the meaning of catigce cum diploide which leads him into a false 
estimate of the evidence on an important point. In 1532, again, he says, 
" We hear nothing .... of unchastity," yet the report runs, " Dompnus 
Johannes Kirby, suspectus, conversatur cum multis cujus praetextu infamia 
oritur in scandalum ecclesise." There are mauy other less serious inaccur- 
acies, but his precis of the Westacre visitations shows perhaps the most 
unpardonable omission of all. The royal visitors of 1536 here reported 
unnatural crime, yet Dr Gairdner suppresses the fact that the same crime 
had been recorded in 1526 at the bishop's visitation. Somebody 
probably a scandalised reader has indeed run his pen through the very 
circumstantial evidence of the first witness in this case ; but the next 
witness's deposition stands untouched. " John Thory, a novice, says .... 
that Brother John Barbour is grievously suspected of the aforesaid crime.' 11 
Such and similar suppressions naturally lead the unwary reader to suppose 
that these visitations are favourable to Dr Gairdner's thesis, whereas an 
unsparing analysis of them would in itself have sufficed to explain the ease 
with which Henry suppressed the monasteries. Nor is Dr Gairdner less 
misleading in his complete exclusion of other equally important witnesses. 
The proposals for disendowment made by a strong party in the parliament 
of 1395 were based on the public assertion that the inveterate vicious 
living of prelates and monks had infected the whole people. The petition 
of Oxford University to the king in 1414, though strongly anti-Lollard in 
tone, pleaded that "exempt cloisterers, at the devil's institution, are 



LOLLARDY 697 

frequently defiled by fleshly vices," and begged for more stringent measures 
against them, especially in the case of fornications committed outside the 
monasteries. The anti-Wycliffite Gower speaks equally strongly and at 
greater length ; Gascoigne and the numerous records of Benedictine 
Chapters- General bear witness to a general decay of discipline which made 
such charges only too credible ; and no pre-Reformation author, I believe, 
ever ventured roundly to deny these plain accusations of immorality. 
Having turned his face away from these notorious facts, Dr Gairdner 
exchanges his advocate's wig for that of a judge, remarks that " exact 
evidence is clearly impossible to obtain,"" and records his sentence of not 
proven with a measured solemnity which adds insult to injury (i. 95). No 
student, as I have said, can afford to neglect his book ; but the foregoing 
instances are only a few out of many which might be quoted to warn the 
reader that Dr Gairdner's bias is sometimes strongest where his tone is most 
judicial. 

G. G. COULTON. 
EASTBOURNE. 



The Gospel according to St John. The Greek Text, with Introduction 
and Notes. By the late Brooke Foss Westcott, D.D., D.C.L., 
Bishop of Durham, sometime Regius Professor of Divinity, Cam- 
bridge. 2 Vols. Vol. I., cxcvi + 283; Vol. II., 394. London: 
Murray, 1908. 

No editor's name appears on the title-page of these fine volumes, but the 
preface is signed by one of the Bishop's sons, the Rev. A. Westcott, who 
writes of "the privilege of presenting my father's latest words on the 
Gospel of St John to those who will value them " ; and these, let me say 
at once, will be all who value the Fourth Gospel, for never has it had a 
more discerning commentator, or one who was more deeply imbued with 
the very spirit of its author. Bishop Westcott firmly believed that the 
author was St John himself ; and whether he was right in that belief or no, 
one feels that between the actual author and the commentator there is 
such a community of spirit as ensures that the disciple enters fully into 
the master's mind. And to say that Dr Westcott was the disciple of 
the author of the Fourth Gospel, above all other teachers, after the great 
Master himself, is to affirm what every student of his writings will probably 
be willing to assent to. Every such student will be desirous of adding 
these volumes to his collection of the great theologian's works ; but he 
will do well to remember that the date of the Bishop's death makes it 
impossible that they should be " up to date " in their criticism. Never- 
theless, there is here a vast amount of material which is of value in helping 
to form one's judgment on the questions which are most hotly debated at 
the present moment. 

We are told that so far back as the years 1859 and I860, when a plan 
for a " tripartite " Commentary on the New Testament was discussed 



698 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

between Westcott, Lightfoot, and Hort, the Johannine writings were 
assigned to the first-named. In 1869 he " yielded to a pressing request to 
undertake the Gospel for the Speaker's Commentary, and in consequence 
was reluctantly compelled to substitute the Authorised Version for the 
Greek text as the basis of his work," though he " reserved his right to 
utilise his published notes'" for an edition of the Greek. The present 
edition is the result of this reservation, and of work subsequent to the 
Speaker's Commentary. "The mass of the revised Commentary," -the 
editor thinks, was "compiled during the years 1883-1887," though 
" other notes were subsequently added, and a few of the latest pencilled 
additions probably belong to the last years of his life." 

The latest literature to which I have myself observed a reference is the 
Report of the Palestine Exploration Society, 1881 (I. 145). The present 
volumes are, indeed, very largely a reissue of matter previously existing, 
but not brought together in this convenient form. With the exception of 
the section on the quotations from the Old Testament, which Dr Westcott 
had revised, the introduction is taken practically verbatim from the earlier 
work, the reader not even being informed that Lightfoofs Contemporary 
Review articles, freely referred to, have been collected in book form. " The 
Greek text is that of Westcott and Hort, with occasional preference for 
marginal readings," while the English translation which faces it has for 
its basis the Revised Version. " I have," says the editor, " only altered 
the text (or marginal text where preferred) of the Revised Version in those 
cases where it seemed that its rendering would not have satisfied my 
father." Many of the notes are identical with those in the previous 
edition, but parts of the Gospel have been re-annotated, viz. " practically the 
whole of chapters iii., iv., vi., vii., viii., ix., x., xi., and xii., and considerable 
sections of chapters i., xvi., and xx. In other parts of the Gospel he has 
only made occasional notes." One feature which distinguishes the revised 
commentary is the large number of quotations from patristic writings. 
Rupert of Deutz (j-1135) is drawn upon extensively, and was evidently a 
favourite study of Westcott, who (on iii. 10) contrasts his " deeper insight " 
with that of the Greek Fathers. As an instance of his appositeness, here 
is his comment on iv. 17: "Non expectavit aut exegit ut totum diceret, 
sed clementiae manum porrigens pepercit pudori, subvenit conscientiae 
fluctuanti." 

While we are on the subject of the notes, one or two details may be 
referred to. i. 41 affords an example of how a little discovery may alter 
the current view of a passage, and supersede many expositions. Westcott 
of course reads, and comments on, " He findeth first his own brother " ; 
but so recently as February of this year Mrs Lewis has shown (in the 
Expository Times), on the evidence of two old Latin MSS., which 
read "mane," and of the Syriac of the Sinai Palimpsest, that there 
was a very early reading of irpwi instead of TT/OWTOJ/, and this may 
probably be the original. At all events it makes much better sense, 
ii. 1 is a case where the editor has been caught napping: "See Mark 



WESTCOTT ON ST JOHN 699 

vi. 3, note, 1 '' we read ; and we ask, When did Westcott comment on 
St Mark ? Whereupon we are reminded that the first issue of this com- 
mentary was one of a series, so that the reference is to a companion 
volume in the Speaker's. In the additional notes on ch. xix. is a 
lengthy argument leading up to the conclusion that St John follows 
the modern Western mode of reckoning the hours of the day. We 
might have been warned that Dr Swete, in his St Mark (on xv. 25), 
says this argument has been " considerably shaken by recent research." 
And finally, a distinction might have been drawn between John Lightfoot 
and J. B. Lightfoot, both of whom appear to be referred to by the 
surname alone, so that a young student will almost certainly suppose 
that only one writer is in question, and he the Bishop of Durham, 
Westcott's predecessor in the see. I have known the mistake to be 
made in consulting a library catalogue, the New Testament commentaries 
of the modern scholar being sought under the name of the older. In 
a small way it is something like the confusion between the two Johns 
of Ephesus ! Misprints, so far as I have observed, are very rare, the 
most serious being " exclusively " for " conclusively " on p. xiv of the 
Introduction. On the whole, the editor has done his work well. The 
book is well printed on good paper, and in its black binding, with gold 
lettering and gilt top, has a goodly appearance. The volumes are 
convenient to handle, and lie open easily. 

The Introduction, as has already been remarked, except for one section, 
is practically a verbatim reprint of what was written now many years ago, 
and consequently it cannot deal with the Johannine problems in the shape 
in which they present themselves at the present day. But the present 
problems are only the old problems in a new guise, and it is always useful 
to keep in mind what so great a master thought and wrote. When one 
again reads through these proofs, both internal and external, that the 
Fourth Gospel was actually the work of John the Apostle, and when one 
further refreshes one's memory with Lightfoofs arguments to the same 
effect, the case seems for the moment to be finally settled. But then one 
recollects that as a matter of fact it is not settled, but the controversy is 
going on as merrily as ever, both in regular set books and in articles in the 
theological reviews. A prophecy of Lightfoofs has, however, come true. 
In 1 871 he wrote : " We may look forward to the time when it will be held 
discreditable to the reputation of any critic for sobriety and judgment to 
assign to this gospel any later date than the end of the first century, or 
the very beginning of the second." l No one now seems to find it worth 
while to discuss the Tubingen theory. Yet there are many scholars who 
deny the authorship of a companion of Jesus ; others who feel the weight 
of the evidence for John too strong to be resisted, but who nevertheless 
regard the contents as not necessarily history ; while others are indifferent 
as to the actual author, holding the entire work to be more or less alle- 
gorical. And, indeed, on whichever side we range ourselves the difficulties 

1 Biblical Essays, p. 11. 



700 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

are immense. If the actual evidence forces us to believe that John was the 
author, we are at once met by the difficulty of reconciling his portraiture 
of Jesus with that of the Synoptists, and his view of the ministry with 
theirs. If the three are right in their representation of the gradual 
unfolding of the Messianic character and claims of the Lord, how does the 
fourth come to represent them as taken for granted by everyone from the 
beginning ? And if affinities can be shown (as they can) between the dis- 
courses in the last Gospel and the sayings in the earlier ones, how does the 
effect of the whole come to be so very different ? And how does the Evangelist 
come to give the private conversation of Jesus with the Samaritan woman ? 
for we can hardly accept Westcotfs suggestion that either John was present 
(which he admits to be unlikely), or that the account was derived either 
from Christ or the woman. Yet there is no other alternative if the 
narrative is historical. There is much force in Loisy's wgrds : " Tous les 
discours du quatrieme Evangile sont, au point de vue chretien, comme des 
paroles du Christ glorieux, anticipees dans sa carriere terrestre ; elles sont 
done aussi, pour Thistorien, une expression du sentiment chretien, un 
temoignage de la foi chretienne." On the other hand, I must confess that, 
while I can see that xxi. 20-23 is reconcilable with John's death before the 
narrative was written, yet to my mind it conveys the impression that he was 
still alive. The passage may be consistent with John's being already dead ; 
I cannot see that it is any proof of it. "A great Hebrew epic," was 
Westcotfs description of the Gospel in 1859 ; perhaps here we have the 
clue to all our difficulties. 

G. E. FFRENCH. 
WEST HATCH VICARAGE, TAUNTON. 



Religion in the Further East. 

ONCE more the Bhagavad Gitd, " the Divine Lay," as it has been called, 
attracts a translator and expounder in the person of Mr Charles Johnston, 
formerly Sanskrit prizeman of Dublin University and the Indian Civil 
Service. The philosophical interest of the book, the part which it has 
played in Indian religious life, the intrinsic beauty of much of its teaching, 
all combine to fascinate the student, and Mr Johnston probably yields to 
none of its admirers. 1 A brief general introduction is followed by an analysis 
of the eighteen cantos of the poem, which are rendered in prose. Mr 
Johnston's judgments at the outset are not such as to inspire confidence 
in his guidance. With courageous independence he takes no heed of pre- 
decessors. 2 He boldly affirms that the poem, which he admits to contain 
elements of various dates, was completed in its present form before the 
teaching of Gotama the Buddha, 500 B.C. He places Qankara Acharya, 

1 Bhagavad Gltd, " The Songs of the Master," Charles Johnston, Flushing, New 
York, 1908. 

2 Professor Garbe's analysis (1905), for instance, is not mentioned, nor the still later 
rendering of Professors Deussen and Otto Strauss (1906). 



RELIGION IN FURTHER EAST 701 

who is commonly assigned to the early part of the ninth century A.D., and 
who is even said by some distinguished scholars to have composed his 
commentary on the poem in the year 804 A.D., " some twenty- two centuries 
ago " (p. xvi) ! Such are the chronological uncertainties of Indian literary 
tradition. This of course enables him to dispose altogether of the theories 
of Christian influence which have been so keenly debated among recent 
critics. But he has his own sense of analogy, and freely uses the Gospels 
and the Apocalypse (not always, perhaps, quite happily) for purposes of 
illustration. Neither the Logos nor the worship of the Lamb seems 
altogether appositely introduced. The difficulty of the translator, of 
course, lies in the philosophical terms. Mr Johnston evidently desires to 
make his version intelligible and interesting to English readers. He 
therefore strives to avoid all technicalities, but he is landed consequently 
in frequent vagueness and inexactitude. To take one or two examples at 
random (xiii. 19) : " know that both nature and spirit are beginningless ; 
and know that changes and powers are nature-born." Here "nature" 
(the term is also used by Professor Barnett in his admirable version, but 
then there is a more explicit introduction, and a little sheaf of notes) 
represents the famous Prakriti. It is not the organised cosmos that we 
know, the scene of ordered thought and scientific unity, but the primitive, 
formless, undifferentiated matter. The " powers " that are " nature-born " 
are the three mysterious Gunas, usually termed " qualities," and commonly 
designated " goodness," " passion," and " darkness " (or, as Mr Johnston 
calls them, " substance, force, and darkness "), by whose action the original 
matter passes through various transformations into the world of our 
experience. All this is lost by the simple rendering " powers." The same 
English word reappears in iv. 27 : " all the works of the powers and the 
works of the life-force." Here items of physiological psychology lie hidden 
underneath more general names. The " powers " are the mdriyas or organs 
of sense, eye, ear, and so forth ; the " life-force " is the group of pranas or 
vital breaths. The fact is that a translation of this type really needs a 
running commentary to explain it; the introductory analyses are 
insufficient. With the ethical and religious vocabulary Mr Johnston is 
far more successful, and his deep sympathy with some of the fundamental 
conceptions of the poem makes his interpretations full of suggestiveness. 
As everyone knows, the Gita (to give it the abbreviated name of its Indian 
lovers) is concerned with the way of deliverance for the soul from the 
bonds of worldliness, and its passage to the world of light and love. 
There, mythologically, is the heavenly throne of Vishnu ; there, spiritually, 
is the way of union with that Infinite Life which philosophy had long 
learned to conceive under the triple form of Being, Thought, and Joy 
(Sac-cid-dnanda). 

The divine hero of "the Lord's Song" announces to the listening 
Arjuna that though his essence changed not, and could feel neither birth 
nor decay, he yet condescended to be born from age to age when religion 
declined and irreligion prevailed, " to guard the righteous, to destroy 



702 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

evildoers, to establish the Dharma (truth, law, religion) " (iv. 6-8). That is 
the application to Vishnu (in the person of Krishna) of the beneficent 
purpose realised by the Buddha, save that Buddhism seeks not the 
destruction but the conversion of sinners. The disciple of Krishna, 
however, did not venture to aspire after any share in this great function. 
Nor did early Buddhism place any such aim before the follower of the 
Sakyan Teacher. The primitive "arahat" or saint attained deliverance 
for himself out of the weary round of re-births by the steadfast practice 
of the Eightfold Noble Path. But he did not seek to make this personal 
" salvation " effective for others also. The missionary preachers of the 
first ages of the faith might indeed be the instruments of bringing many 
to righteousness ; but the saint, though he must have a heart full of love 
for all creatures, was not pledged to incessant labour for their rescue 
from the bondage of ignorance and sin. The ideal of individual holiness 
had thus certain egoistic limitations; it was a "vehicle"" that only held 
one in the transit through the sphere of rebirth. 

But under influences which it is impossible here even to indicate, this 
ideal gradually expanded. The skiff in which the believer made his lonely 
voyage across the ocean of transmigration (to use another familiar figure) 
grew into a vessel capable of holding many ; and the system known as the 
" Great Vehicle " held up new visions in which the disciple saw himself called 
upon to undertake the same beneficent labour for others which the Teacher 
had already wrought for him. To take the great vow to become a Buddha, 
to devote every energy of body and mind to preparation for attaining 
supreme enlightenment and diffusing it among all beings from the highest 
heavens to the lowest hells, this was the new duty which profoundly 
transformed both the theory and practice of Buddhism. It was connected 
with a philosophical change which brought back into Buddhist thought the 
great ontological conceptions so strictly repudiated by the Founder, and 
issued in a scheme of transcendental idealism absolutely opposed to the 
empirical idealism of an earlier day. 

By this altered environment the ethical culture of the " Little Vehicle " 
was transmuted into a religion of communion in the Great. The believer 
found himself encompassed by innumerable spiritual powers, with the 
beautiful figure of Avalokitecvara at their head, each pledged to the same 
task, a share in the deliverance of all living beings from the fetters of 
worldliness and the snares of sin. These formed the vast multitude of the 
Bodhisattvas or Buddhas-to-be, sustained by the power and grace of the 
Eternal with whom they were in some way or other indissolubly connected. 
An enormous literature arose to describe the scope of their labours, and 
the stages of their advance towards attainment. One of these poetic 
manuals has recently been translated with loving care by the eminent 
scholar in Buddhist Sanskrit, Professor Louis de la Vallee Poussin, of Gand. 1 
It is ascribed to a Teacher of the Great Vehicle, Qantideva, w hose date is 

1 Bodhicarydvatdra, " Introduction & la Pratique des Future Bouddhas," Paris, 1907. 
The translation is provided with very valuable analyses and notes. 



RELIGION IN FURTHER EAST 703 

placed (for instance by the late Professor Bendall) in the middle of the 
seventh century A.D. 1 It is founded on the idea that the higher insight 
abolishes the distinction between " self" and " others," and the disciple can 
only secure his own victory over evil by whole-hearted devotion to the 
liberation of those around him. 

The poem' is divided into nine cantos of very unequal lengths ; a tenth, 
viewed even by the Buddhist tradition as of uncertain authority, has been 
left untranslated. It breathes an air mingled of strenuousness and 
compassion towards the sinful sufferers around and beneath, and of lowly 
submission to the Buddhas above. It is not exactly a Buddhist counter- 
part to the " Imitation," though the type of the Buddha's self-devotion 
everywhere forms the background. Rather might it be compared with the 
" Spiritual Exercises " of Loyola, save that the note of obedience to 
authority is wholly wanting, and a certain passion of self-confidence and 
enterprise in the undertaking of great tasks is encouraged (see canto vii., 
on viriya, " energy "). It contains acts of faith, and humble confessions ; 
but it affirms that active desire for the good of the world is more meri- 
torious than the cultus of the Buddhas (i. 27), and it urges the disciple to 
make the great vow for the attainment of Bodhi (the supreme knowledge) 
to promote the true goal of universal deliverance (iii.)- Then follow a 
series of delineations of the moral conditions needful for the fulfilment of 
the high purpose. A tremendous responsibility lies on him who thus 
devotes himself : " If I do not accomplish the vow, I deceive all living 
beings" (iv. 4) ; freedom from distraction, therefore, and subjugation of all 
disturbing passions, are essential. Various systems of thought are re- 
viewed and refuted. Theism is impaled on the dilemma that if God acts 
without desiring it, He is subordinate to some extraneous power ; if He 
acts through desire, He is under its control and is not sovereign (ix. 126). 
A curious tradition relates that after proclaiming verse 35 " When both 
being and not-being have ceased to present themselves to the mind, as 
there is nothing more to affirm or deny, the mind is at peace " Qantideva 
rose in the air and disappeared. But the ascended saint continued the 
poem, and the remaining 130 verses were heard and recorded by pious 
followers. All students of the later Buddhism will feel deep gratitude to 
the translator for putting into their hands so precious a work of Buddhist 
piety. Not till Christian missionaries have thoroughly assimilated its 
spirit can they understand how great an obstacle the doctrine of 
eternal punishment without hope of permanent redemption, or even of 
temporary relief, perpetually places in their way. 

The remarkable articles on Japanese Shintoism, recently published in 
the Revue de FHisioire des Religions by M. Michel Revon, have been 
collected into a substantial volume and provided with an admirable index, 
under the general title Le Shinnto'isme? The exposition is on a very 

1 See his edition of the ^ikshasamuccaya, 1902, pp. iii-vi. 

2 There is no title-page, but the table of contents bears the date, " Paris, Imprimerie 
Nationale, Novembre 1907." 



704 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

comprehensive scale, for the present issue (comprising 473 pp.) deals 
only with the gods of Shinto, their origin, nature, and life; the 
whole practice of Shinto, including the worship of ancestors, with 
its immense social significance, being reserved for future treatment. 

M. Revon has lived long in Japan, and is steeped in knowledge 
of its early literature, together with the commentators of the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He is perfectly familiar with the 
labours of the English scholars, Satow, Chamberlain, 1 and Aston. And 
he writes with a wide outlook over the general history of religious 
evolution ; beside the names of A. Reville and the lamented Leon 
Marillier, the English reader welcomes those of Tylor, Frazer, and Lang. 
The text is generally brief, condensed, and pointed (occasionally M. Revon 
permits himself a pungent criticism on the treatment of the Eastern nations 
by the West), while the notes contain a vast quantity of subsidiary 
illustration. No such study of ancient Japanese religion has as yet 
appeared, the English treatise of Aston (Shinto, 1905) being usually 
limited to description, and almost devoid of references. 

The evolution of Shinto is essentially analogous in M. Revon's view 
to that of other primitive religions. If any further refutation were needed 
of Spencer's discarded thesis, this book would suffice to supply it. The 
interest of the Japanese field lies partly in the fact that the earliest 
literary deposits in the Kojiki and the Nihongi are almost wholly the 
product of antique tradition, the occasional traces of later Chinese culture 
being easily separable. In a series of very suggestive pages (pp. 332-351 ), 
M. Revon discusses the question of the origins of the Japanese people, 
and traces in them a double strand of race, Mongolian on the one hand, 
and Malay or Malayo-Polynesian on the other. To the latter element 
(which produced a victorious aristocracy) he traces some of the charac- 
teristic features of Japanese character the quick intelligence, the proud 
warrior spirit, and the joyous love of nature and art, which have 
made the Japanese a people unique in Asia. The Japanese pantheon, 
however, was formed in their own islands; and the relative significance 
of mountain and river, wind and rain, is reflected in the varying import- 
ance of their deities in early myth. There is no living Sky as in ancient 
Chinese thought to co-ordinate and unify the powers of nature. M. 
Revon does not even name one of the figures of the Nihongi, Ama no mi- 
naka-nushi, " Heaven-august-centre-master," in whom some students have 
seen the pole-star, and others "a personification of the sky, which has 
already reached that secondary phase in which the God has become distinct 
from the natural phenomenon " (Aston, Shinto, p. 142). The stars play but 
a small part in ancient Japanese mythology ; the earth and its products 
provide the chief objects of interest next to the sun and moon, and supply 
the scenery and equipment both for the upper and the under worlds. 

The often-repeated charge that Shinto has no morality, is incidentally 

1 It is a pity that Chamberlain's Things Japanese is always cited from an early 
edition, instead of the much enlarged edition of 1902. 



RELIGION IN FURTHER EAST 705 

refuted by M. Revon again and again. It is true that Shinto has no 
" Ten Words " like Israel, not even a modest panca-slla (Five Precepts) 
like Buddhism. But it is not, therefore, destitude of ethical significance. 
Its deities are, for the most part, beneficent ; there is no diabolic aristo- 
cracy, the spirits of evil are anonymous (the later demonology shows 
Buddhist influence) ; the attitude of the worshipper, as the early rituals 
amply prove, is one of trust and gratitude, of love and hope. Myth and 
tradition alike show the presence of brutal passions ; but a moral order is 
being slowly evolved. Crime is placed under religious sanctions of punish- 
ment ; children are submissive and obedient ; the women are better than 
the men ; there are consecrated formulae for marriage and divorce. The 
singular mixture of the ceremonial and the moral (which has so many 
parallels elsewhere) may be seen in the ritual of the " Great Purification. " l 
Before the eighth century it seems to have been celebrated only occasion- 
ally, and for special reasons. But as new ethical influences streamed in 
with Confucian culture and Buddhist missionary enterprise, Shinto ac- 
quired a deeper moral consciousness, and a half-yearly ceremony on the 
30th of the sixth and twelfth months became the rule. A decree of the 
present reign in 1872 fixes the ordinance to the last day of June and 
December, and requires its performance at all Shinto shrines, whether 
supported by the government or maintained by local piety. Four or five 
days before the close of the month the believer procures from the priest 
a white paper cut in the shape of a garment. On this he writes the 
year and month of his birth and his sex, rubs it over his whole body, 
and breathes on it. His sins are thus transferred to the paper robe ; it 
is taken to the shrine and placed on a table while food offerings are 
presented and purifying ceremonies are performed. Finally the paper 
garments are packed in cases, put into a boat, rowed out to sea, and com- 
mitted to the deep. There they are carried to the great Sea-Plain by the 
Maiden-of-Descent-into-the-Current, who bears them to the Maiden-of-the- 
Swift-Opening, dwelling in the Eight-Hundred-Meetings of the Brine-of- 
the-Eight-Brine-Currents. She swallows them down with gurgling sound, 
and the Lord-of-the-Breath-Blowing- Place then blows them away into the 
Root-Country, the bottom, apparently, of the under world ! 

The contrast between different ways of dealing with sin in modern 
Shinto ritual and Buddhist preaching receives remarkable illustration in 
the sermons of Tada Kanai, of the Shin Shu Sect (the True Sect of the 
Pure Land), translated with admirable sympathy by the Rev. Arthur 
Lloyd under the title The Praises of Amida. 2 The characteristic 
features of this sect were described in this Journal by Mr Troup (Jan. 
1906) ; it is only necessary to recall the conception on which its teaching 
is founded, that faith in the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life is the sole 

1 This is no doubt reserved by M. Revon for his future volume. See the account 
of the present practice of Norito x., by Dr Karl Florenz, in the Trans. Asiat. Soc. Jap. y 
vol. xxvii., pt. i., pp. 16 ff. 

2 Tokyo, 1907. Published by the Kyobunkwan. 

VOL. VII. No. 3. 45 



706 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

requisite for the believer's salvation. In these sermons the preacher avails 
himself of all the resources of literature, ancient and modern, to awaken 
the careless to a sense of their danger, to strengthen the wavering, to 
comfort the troubled. Passages from the sacred texts, from Epictetus or 
Emerson, sayings from the Gospels, incidents from the romances of Hugo, 
Hawthorne, or Tolstoi, show that the Buddhist teacher is confronted with 
the same moral problems as the men of insight in all ages. How to find 
the gate of true peace, what is the tender mercy of Amida in calling us to 
him out of the storms of evil into a safe refuge, how even " our sin only 
serves to bring out more clearly the workings of the Divine Mercy,'" how 
there is only One Rule, One Law, One Buddha, and One Paradise, how all 
men must be bound into union by means of the One Name and the Great 
Parent awaits their coming to him, how we must all prepare to go forth 
from the hostelry of this life and turn our faces to the City of Light 
these are the preacher's themes. It will be to the lasting shame of 
Christian sectarianism if the Buddhism that expresses itself thus remains 
estranged from the character and the message of Jesus Christ. 

J. E. CARPENTER. 
MANCHESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD. 



The Culture of the Soul among Western Nations. By P. Ramanathan, 
K.C., C.M.G. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
1906. Pp.262. 

IT ought to be widely recognised that the cultivation of the soul according 
to the precepts of the Christianity of Jesus is something that the best 
Hindu minds appreciate no less highly than do the religious teachers of 
the Occident. But the Hindu makes a sharp distinction between true 
Christianity and ecclesiastical Christianity, or " Churchianity," and 
whenever he writes concerning religion in Western nations, his emphasis 
is not on existing conditions there, but bears rather upon the religious 
attainments that ought to be realised wherever Jesus is the accepted 
ideal example. 

Mr P. Ramanathan, of Ceylon, is the author of a book composed of 
seven discourses delivered by him at the invitation of Monsalvat School 
for the Comparative Study of Religion. According to this author, the 
unfortunate sectarianism that prevails in the Occident is chiefly due to 
the loss of the traditional oral interpretation of the Scriptures, which 
was regarded in the early period of the Christian Church as of the first 
importance. This unwritten interpretation was then heard from the lips 
of spiritual sages and seers who had attained, to a high degree, the very 
ideals of purity, wisdom, and love towards which they sought to attract 
their hearers. Men irresistibly follow such soulful leaders, but how few 
such are leading in the West to-day ! In India, it is asserted, there is not 
this lack of spiritual mastership. Broad-minded students of religion who 



CULTURE OF THE SOUL 707 

have noted that fact will welcome Mr RamanatharTs book as a more helpful 
guide to pure Christianity than most Christian writers are able to produce. 
The author's point of view is shown in such clauses as these : " Faith 
is much more than belief. It is the attachment or bond of love which 
springs from belief" (p. 15); "The waxing of the love of God depends, 
indeed, upon the waning of the love of the world " (p. 23) ; " The western 
nations know of only one Christ, but India knows of scores in each 
generation" (p. 81); "God is known by the soul only when the mind 
runs down to a calm and lies quite still " (p. 97) ; " God and soul, being 
purely spiritual, cannot be explained sufficiently by words. No descrip- 
tion on the part of a person who has known them can make another know 
them, even as the taste of water cannot be expressed in words " (p. 45) ; 
"A worldly saying is best interpreted by a man of worldly experience, 
.... a spiritual saying by a man of spiritual experience. Experience, 
indeed, is the touchstone of interpretation " (p. 38) ; " God is to be seen 
(that is, known) only where the ' world ' is not, that is, only in the reign 
of pure consciousness " (p. 103) ; " The truth, as experienced by Jnanis 
(knowers of God), is that consciousness is wholly distinct from the mind 
and the senses " (p. 107) ; " Consciousness is the Be-ing which knows, and 
must not be confounded with the states or sensibilities induced .... 
through the excitation of the senses and thoughts'" (p. 121). 

These quotations are sufficient to show that the view-point of the 
Oriental thinker is widely different from that which is held in the 
Occident. And not alone that, but his spiritual vision is introverted 
and subjective in much the same way that characterised the experiences 
of Jesus also an Oriental thinker. Western religion, as a rule, is not 
subjective, but objective, for which reason it idealises and worships Jesus 
in lieu of understanding him. This is just what the Master would most 
surely deprecate. Objective religion exists where the religious conscious- 
ness has not yet attained fulness or maturity, and it is objective because 
it depends upon perception instead of apperception. This perception 
cannot discern the spiritual centrality within, but is habitually occupied 
with something external some inspired book, doctrine, or idealised person 
wholly out of touch with present-day experience. This is aptly illustrated 
by the case of the lady of distinction who has a beautiful copy of MurinVs 
" Transfiguration of the Virgin." Often does she gaze upon the picture in 
reverent admiration, but would she herself be like the ideal portrayed 
there ? Never ! Impossible ! The question is : How can she and such 
as she ever understand what true religion is ? Who can deny that 
objective religion is virtually sentimental religion, in the exercise of which 
there is much looking up, but very little moving up, toward the divine 
ideal ? What Jesus thought of this sentimental religion is made plain in 
these words of warning : " Not every one that saith unto me, ' Lord, 
Lord ! ' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the 
will of my Father." 

The most notable of Mr Ramanathan's seven discourses is entitled 



708 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

"The Key of Knowledge, or the Fundamental Experiences of the 
Sanctified in Spirit. 1 ' This relates to the Jnanis of India and their way 
of attaining the " state of godliness," which is life raised to a state of pure 
consciousness that is, consciousness of the Self after the renunciation of 
the " earth-bound or worldly I " and its desires. The Christianity of Jesus 
is here radicalised and carried to its logical conclusion as a life, not a 
system of belief but the great majority of professing Christians will 
hardly be ready to follow where this profoundly practical religion leads. 
They will first need to unlearn their myths and half-truths about God, 
Jesus, and " eternal life," and see all understandingly. Only in the light 
radiated by one^s own indwelling divinity can this insight be experienced, 
and perhaps the author is justified in maintaining that those who have not 
yet attained such insight should trust in the authority of their spiritual 
superiors for religious guidance. 

After reading this suggestive, heart-searching book, one can but 
wonder how the gulf between the highest ideal of Eastern religion 
and that of Western religion is to be bridged. By letting the mind 
"run down to a calm" the calm of non-desire the Oriental aspirant 
finds the " peace which passeth understanding." But to the restless 
Western mind, non-desire is only a state of vacuity, and it has convinced 
itself that this entails the loss of individuality. Now, it is fair to pre- 
sume that the Western mind has arrived at such a conclusion because 
not yet cognisant of the deeper resources of the subjective-spiritual. It 
would hardly be possible to write of these resources confidently and 
impressively without first entering into the experience of them, and this 
the author has undoubtedly done. Western devotees of religion who are 
bent upon understanding Jesus, need just that frequent introversion of 
thought and feeling from the interests of the outer life to those of the 
inner. Committed to this, they would appreciate the fact that the true 
test of spiritual progress is the waning of the desire for the worldly. 
Committed to this, they would become convinced of what Jesus constantly 
saw, i.e. that a wholly sincere desire for godliness and God-consciousness 
involves non-desire for everything that prevents that realisation. It is a 
choice the right choice between the verities and the vanities, for they 
will not mix. It sloughs off personalism, but preserves and magnifies true 
individuality. 

There may be a good and sufficient reason why religion among Western 
peoples lacks the profundity and absorbing appreciation with which the 
highest classes of Hindus invest it. Presumably, subjective development 
is not so far advanced in the younger nations as in India. This difference 
should be expected. The critic of soul culture as seen in such nations 
should allow for the conditions which are bound to prevail wherever 
mental activities are, for the most part, exhausted by the demands of 
the physical. 

W. T. SEEGER. 
BOSTON , MASS. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

OF RECENT BOOKS AND ARTICLES. 



A RELIGION 1 Nature 2 Philos. 3 
Psychol. 8 Christianity 10 Nat. Relig. 
15 Relig. and Science. 

1 Kuhns (Oscar) The Sense of the In- 
finite : A Study of the Transcendental 
Element in Literature, Life, and Religion. 
271p. Holt, 1908. 

[After a general introduction, come chapters 
on The Sense of the Infinite, The -Transcendental 
View of Nature, Romantic Love, Plato and 
Plotinus. Neo - Platonism Past and Present, 
Medieval Mysticism, The Period of the Renais- 
sance aiid the Reformation, Modern Transcen- 
dentalism, and a concluding chapter summing 
up the discussion.] 

Kelly (If.) Revelation and Religious 
Ideas. Church Q. H,, Jan. 1909. 

[Reality belongs only to revealed and not to 
notional religions. Judaism and Christianity 
alone belong to the former class.] 

2 Gibson ( W. R. Boyce) God with Us : A 
Study in Religious Idealism. 248p. 

Black, 1909. 

[Dedicated to Rudolf Eucken as an "aftermath 
from his own field." The author defends a philo- 
sophy of the religious life based on personal ex- 
perience. The key to this " anthropotheistic 
position" he finds in Love; and from this point 
of view he discusses the needs of adolescence and 
the problems of Monism and evil.] 

Lindsay (J.) Kant's Philosophy of 
Religion. Biblioth. Sacra, Jan. 1909. 

Bavinck (Herman) The Philosophy of 
Revelation. (Stone Lectures for 1908-1909. ) 
359 p. Longmans, 1909. 

[A thoughtful treatment of modern philosophi- 
cal views in the light of the doctrine that revela- 
tion in nature and revelation in Scripture form, 
in alliance with each other, a harmonious unity 
which satisfies the requirements of the intellect 
and the needs of the heart alike.] 

3 Cutten (G. Barton) The Psychological 
Phenomena of Christianity. 515p. 

Scribner, 1908. 

Goix (A.) La psychologie du jeiine 
mystique. Rev. de Phil. , Feb. and Mar. 1909. 

Montmorand ( Vicomte Brenier de) Saint 
Vincent de Paul : Essai de psychologie 
religieuse. Rev. de Phil., Jan. 1909. 

Johnston (C.) The Religion of the Will. 
The Will in the Soul. II. Desire. 

Theosoph. Quar. , Jan. 1909. 

Leuba (J. H. ) The Psychological Nature 
of Religion. Amer. J. Th., Jan. 1909. 

4 Smith (Goldwin) No Refuge but in 
Truth. 63p. Tyrrell & Co., 1908. 

[Letters, reprinted from the New York Sun, on 
Man and his Destiny, New Faith linked with 
Old, The Scope of Evolution, The Limit of 
Evolution, Explanations, The Immortality of the 
Soul, Is there to be a Revolution in Ethics?] 



Wrixon (Sir Henry) The Religion of the 
Common Man. 199p. Macmillan, 1909. 

[Records the reflections and the conclusions of 
a man of average intellect and ordinary informa- 
tion, as he muses upon and wrestles with the 
problem of his existence here and his future 
destiny, and seeks to discover light at least t< 
guide him on his earthly journey.] 
8 Giran (E.) Le Christianisme progressif 
et la conscience moderne. 

Coenobium, Jan. 1909 

[A manifesto of a "libre croyant," repudiating 
the Christianity of church rites arid doctrines.] 
10 Belot (G.) La triple origine de 1'idee dp 
Dieu. Rev. Phil., Dec. 1909. 

[The idea of God is the product of religious 
tradition, abstract reflection, and ill-defined, 
unexplained subjective experiences.] 

Lalande (Andre) L'idee de Dieu et le 
principe d'assimilation intellectuelle. 

Rev. Phil., March 1909. 

[Suggested by M. Belot's article. Emphasises 
the importance of the tendency to seek a unifica- 
tion of experience in the development of the 
idea of God.] 

Durkheim (E.) Examen critique des 
systemes classiques sur les origines de l;i 
pensee religieuse. 

Rev. Phil., Jan. and Feb. 1909. 

[A very careful critical examination of the ' 
naturalistic and animistic conceptions of the 
origin of religion. Both err in treating religion 
as a product of hallucination. That is an impos- 
sible explanation : it amounts to the supposition 
of a veritable creation ex nihilo.} 

15 Ponsard (P.) Science, Religion, Revela- 
tion. R. prat. d'Apologet., Jan. 15, 1909. 

Tansley (I.} Sir Oliver Lodge on Man 
and the Universe. II. 

New Church Magazine, Feb. 1909. 
[Swedenborgian criticism.] 
Wintrebert (L.) Chronique scientifique. 
L'homme fossil e de la Chapelle-aux-Saints 
R. du Clerge frangais, Feb. 1, 1909. 

16 Serf ass (C.) A propos de Messine. 

Rev. chret., Feb. 1909. 
[Discusses the problem of Evil.] 
Wright (H. W.) The Problem of 
Natural Evil and its Solution by Christi- 
anity. Amer. J. Th., Jan. 1909. 
Editors of Cont. R. Providence and 
Earthquake. Cont. R., Feb. 1909. 
[Good is the product of freedom and knowledge, 
and with the growth of knowledge the freedom 
of choice tends to reject the evil in favour of the 
good. There does not therefore appear to be any 
essential incongruity between the goodness of 
God and the existence of evil, even when it is 
manifested in the lives of men. It is in all cuses 
the penalty of ignorance, and the fear of it is the 
highest incentive to higher things.] 

709 



710 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



18 Ward ( Wilfrid) Mr Chesterton among 
the Prophets. Dub. R., Jan. 1909. 



B BIBLE 1 Old Test. 5 New Test. 
9 Apocrypha. 

Bd Hastings (James), Ed. Dictionary of the 
Bible. With the co-operation of J. A. 
Selbie, and with the assistance of J. C. 
Lambert and Shailer Mathews. 1008p. 

T. & T. Clark, 1909. 

[An independent work intended to put into the 
hands of those who have not the means to buy or 
the knowledge to use the larger work a single- 
volume Dictionary abreast of modern scholarship. 
The contributors include over 100 authorities.] 
g Cooke(G. A. ) Some Principles of Biblical 
Interpretation. Expos., Mar. 1909. 

[As illustrated in O.T. literature. The article 
is the inaugural address of the author on suc- 
ceeding to Cheyne's chair.] 

m Charles (R. H.) Man's Forgiveness of 
his Neighbour : A Study in Religious 
Development. Expos., Dec. 1908. 

[Shows the great advance of the N.T. over the 
Old. The Testament of the XII. Patriarchs 
reaches the N.T. level, and we "must assume 
our Lord's acquaintance " with its teaching on the 
subject.] 

q Margoliouth (D. S.) Dr G. A. Smith on 
Jerusalem. Expos., Dec. 1908. 

Smith (G. A.) TheLandofEdom. II. 
The Eastern Range Mount Esau. 

Expos., Dec. 1908. 
[Geographically descriptive.] 
z Dummelow (J. R. ), Ed. A Commentary 
on the Holy Bible. By various writers. 
1244p. Macmillan, 1909. 

[An elaborate work, aiming to supply informa- 
tion as to, inter alia, the circumstances under 
which the various books were originally com- 
posed, the mental habits of the people to whom 
they were addressed, and the actual needs they 
were designed to meet.] 

s Howorth (Sir H. //.) The Canon of the 
Bible among the Later Reformers. 

J. Th. St., Jan. 1909. 

1 Winstedt (E. 0.) Some Unpublished 
Sahidic Fragments of the Old Testament. 

J. Th. St., Jan. 1909. 

a Cook (Stanley A.) Religion of Ancient 
Palestine in the Second Millennium B.C., 
in the Light of Archaeology and the Inscrip- 
tions. (Religions, Ancient and Modern.) 
129p. Constable, 1908. 

[An able little work. The aim has been to 
furnish a fairly self-contained description of the 
general religious conditions from external or 
non-biblical sources.] 

h Boyd (J. 0.) Jewish Parties in the Fifth 
Century before Christ. 

Princeton Th. Rev., Jan. 1909. 
[As deduced from a study of Ezra-Neh. and the 
Elephantine papyri. The Elephantine com- 
munity belonged to the " international " party, 
and their temple, like the later ones of Gemini 
and Leontopolis, was sectarian, and represents a 
defection from the O.T. standard. The evidence 
of this fifth or sixth century temple requires us 
to put back the period when the single sanctuary 
was presupposed, i.e. the critics must find an 
earlier date for the Priest's Code, which certainly 
presupposes the central sanctuary.] 
Hogg (IIopc W.) Orientalia. 

Interpreter, Jan. 1909. 

[Xotes chiefly on some publications in 1908 
dealing with Babylonia and Egypt.] 



We igall (Arthur E. P.) Religion and 
Empire in Ancient Egypt. 

Quar. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Some account of the evidence relating to the 
rule of the Hyksos, or "Shepherd Kings," and a 
review of the recent discoveries which have thrown 
so much fresh light on the end of the Eighteenth 
Dynasty.] 

Peirie ( W. M. Flinders) Personal Re- 
ligion in Egypt before Christianity. 184p. 
Harper & Brothers, 1909. 

[The personal religion here dealt with is that 
which concerns private beliefs rather than public 
acts.] 

Duncan (J. Garr<><r) The Exploration 
of Egypt and the Old Testament 248p. 

Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1908. 

[A summary of results obtained by exploration 
in Egypt up to the present time, with a fuller 
account of those bearing on the Old Testament. 
With 100 illustrations from photographs.] 

i Jordan (W. G.) Biblical Criticism and 
Modern Thought ; or, The Place of the Old 
Testament in the Life of To-day. 333p. 

Clark, 1909. 

[By treating the O.T. as real literature, the 
author attempts to get at the heart of the people 
from whom it came, and to grasp its real revela- 
tion.] 

Orchard (W. E.) The Evolution of Old 
Testament Religion. 287p. Clarke, 1908. 
[Written from the point of view of the Higher 
Criticism. "This book is an earnest plea for 
earnest men to consider whether it is not open 
to be shown that from these facts there comes to 
us a much clearer understanding of God's ways 
with man ; a more certain conviction that in 
the past God has actually spoken through the 
Scriptures."] 

u2 Swete (H. E.) The Old Testament in 
Greek. II. The Greek Old Testament in the 
Christian Church. Interpreter, Jan. 1909. 
[The LXX. was one of the parents of Christian 
literature of the N.T. and of the other writings 
of the early Church. It supplied the preacher of 
the first age with the text and with much of the 
materials of his preaching : it supplied the leaders 
of Christian worship with the backbone of ;< 
liturgy.] 

y Box(G. H.} A Short Introduction to the 
Literature of the Old Testament. (Oxford 
Church Text-books. ) 1 48p. 

Rivingtoiis. 1909. 

[Written for beginners, and intended to be used 
in conjunction with Canun Ottley's volume on 
The Helrrew Prophets. ] 

Foakes- Jackson (P. J.) The Old Testa- 
ment before Modern Criticism. II. How 
the O.T. emerged from the Test. 

Interpreter, Jan. 1909. 
[Despite our loss of certain beauties, which we 
often part with only to find in another form, we 
get a truer picture of God's dealing with Israel. 
And we discover under the new conditions of 
criticism a new interest in periods of Jewish 
history which had once seemed devoid of stirrine 
incident.] 

2A Wiener (H. M.) Essays in Pentateuchal 
Criticism. III. The '"Clue" to the 
"Documents." Bibliotli. Sacra, Jan. 1909. 
[Attacks the commonly received critical theory 
taking Carpenter's presentment of it.] 
B Coggin (Frederick Ernest) Man's Great 
Charter : An Exposition of the First Chapter 
of Genesis. Revised edition. 207]). 

Nisbet, 1908. 

K Barnes (W. E.) The David of the Book 
of Samuel and the David of the Book of 
Chronicles. Expos., Jan. 1909. 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 711 



[The writer's interest in the Temple introduces 
the figure of David and colours his portrait.] 
3B Vidal (J. M.) L'idee de resurrection 
dans Job. 

R. du Clergc frangais, Feb. 1, 1909. 

[First of two articles.] 

5 ' ' X. " Professor Mayor and the Helvidian 
Hypothesis. Expos., Dec. 1908. 

[A warm rejoinder to Mayor's answer in this 
discussion of the nature of the relationship of 
Christ and " his brethren." ] 

Lewis (Miss Agnes M.) Letter to the ; 
Editor. Expos., Jan. 1909. 

[Correcting the statement of "X." in the 
December number to the effect that the Syr, Sin. 
j'alimpxest has suffered erasure with a knife at 
the hands of the orthodox librarian. Erasure has 
taken place, but impartially, with the only object 
apparently of getting a clear surface for the 
seventh or eighth century " Stories of Holy 
Women." ] 

Mayor (J. B, ) The Brethren of the Lord : 
Second Thoughts. Expos., Jan. 1909. 

[Maintains the hypothesis, but modifies some 
arguments.] 

Wilson (A. J,) Emphasis in the New 
Testament. J. Th. St., Jan. 1909. 

k Turner (G. ff.) Historical Introduction 
to the Textual Criticism of the New Testa- 
ment. II. The Contents of the Canon of 
the New Testament. (A) The Four Gospels. 
J. Th. St., Jan. 1909. 

Moulton (J. H.) and Milligan (G.) ' 
Lexical Notes from the Papyri. 

Expos., Dec. 1908, Jan., Mar. 1909. \ 

Moss (J. ) 'EvfpytlffQai in the New Testa- j 
inent. Expos., Jan. 1909. j 

Mayor (J. JR.} Note on evepye'icrQa.i. 

Expos., Feb. 1909. ! 

[Pointing out to ROBS that he had already ! 
published the opinion Ross maintains, that the 
verb in Biblical Greek is always passive.] 
o' Kennedy (E. A. A.} The Functions of 
the Forerunner, and the Storming of the 
Kingdom. Expos., Dec. 1908. 

Ramsay (Sir W. M.} The Time of the 
Transfiguration. Expos., Dec. 1908. 

[Adopting Col. Mackinlay's suggestion that 
the Transfiguration occurred at the Feast of 
Tabernacles, the writer compares the Synoptic 
account (Mark ix. 2 ff., Mt. xvii., Luke ix. 28 ff.) 
with that of John vii., and finds that, while not a 
detail of one appears in the other, the two yet 
dovetail perfectly, chronology and tone wonder- 
fTilly agreeing. The two narratives must be 
therefore founded on personal knowledge or first- 
hand information.] 

w Sardi (M. ) II " Figlio dell' Uomo. " 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog. , Jan. 1909. 

[The term sometimes = Messiah, sometimes the 
Kingdom of God. Christ used it to designate 
himself, its advantage being that it was so 
indeterminate as to be capable of receiving a 
manifold significance.] 

c Buchler (A.) St Matthew vi. 1-6 and 
other Allied Passages. J. Th. St., Jan. 1909. 

[The difficulty as to praying in the street and 
sounding the trumpet is explained by referring 
the occasion to a public fast, when these customs 
were followed.] 

D Bacon (Benjamin Wisner) The Begin- 
nings of Gospel Story. A Historico-Critical 
Inquiry into the sources and structure of 
the Gospel according to Mark, with ex- 
pository notes upon the text, for English 
readers. (The Modern Commentary Series.) 
279p. Yale University Press, 1909. 

[Review follows.] 



The Ascension in Luke 
Expos., Mar. 1909. 



E Bacon (B. 
and Acts. 

[By treating Acts i. 3 as "'the historian's at- 
tempt to compensate for the omitted traditions " 
(the appearance to Peter among them), the 
writer argues there i* no contradiction between 
Luke and Acts as to the time of the Ascension. 
Both put it at the beginning of the forty days, as 
all available apostolic and post-apostolic testi- 
mony agrees. ] 
W Carr (A.) Christus Aediticator. 

Expos., Jan. 1909. 

[A comparison between St John ii. 19 and 
Zechariah vi. 13. "Our Lord was directing the 
thought of his hearers to an Old Testament 
incident, which would not only indicate His 
claim to authority, but open out the significance 
of the temple itself in the light of prophecy."] 

Denney (J. ) Jesus' Estimate of John the 

Baptist. Expos., Jan. 1909. 

7 A Liberty (S.) St Peter's Speech in Acts 

i. 15-22. Expos., Jan. 1909. 

[Discusses the syntactical connection and 

exegesis of the verses.] 

Ramsay (Sir W. M.} The Authorities 
used in the Acts i.-xii. 

Expos., Feb., Mar. 1909. 
[And to be continued.] 

Harnack (Adolf) The Acts of the 

Apostles. Translated by the Rev. J. R. 

Wilkinson. (Crown Theological Library.) 

346p. Williams & Norgate, 1909. 

[Review will follow.] 

Bacon (B, W.) Professor Harnack on the 
Lukan Narrative. Amer. J. Th., Jan. 1909. 
[Professor Bacon expresses himself as hardly 
ready to accept H.'s conclusions. At any rate, 
the author of Acts is not Pauline at all, but 
Petrine in views and teaching.] 
7B Garvie (A. E.} The Doctrir.e of Christ. 

Expos., Jan. and Feb. 1909. 
[A study in Pauline theology.] 
Garvie (A. E.} The Need of Salvation. 

Expos., Mar. 1909. 

[Another study in the Pauline theology.] 

Quettemlle (P. W, ) Paul the Missionary, 

and other Studies. 265p. P. Green, 1908. 

b Lake (Kirsopp) What was the End of 

St Paul's Trial ? Interpreter, Jan. 1909. 

[Thinks there is fair reason for the conjecture 

that St Luke means, in the concluding portion of 

Acts, that the case against St Paul came to 

nothing owing to the continued absence of the 

prosecuting Jews, and that after two years he 

was released.] 

6D King (E, G.} The Disciple that Jesus 
loved : A Suggestion. 

Interpreter, Jan. 1909. 
[The suggestion is that the reference is to the 
rich young man of Mk. x. 21.] 
7M Ramsay (Sir W. M,} Dr Milligan's 
Edition of the Epistles to the Thessalonians. 
Expos., Jan. 1909. 
[Commended.] 

S Maynard (J. Z>.) Justin Martyr and the 
Text of Hebrews xi. 4. Expos., Feb. 1909. 
[Trypho, c. 19, supports Cobet's emendation of 
HAEIONA into HAIONA.] 

U Blunt (A. W. F.) The Epistle of St 
James. Interpreter, Jan. 1909. 

V Harris (J. Rendel} An Emendation to 

1 Peter ii. 8. Expos., Feb. 1909. 

[Seeks to establish the currency of the doctrine 

of Christ as the Stone which suggests the reading 

eis o ereOr).] 

Y Law (Robert) The Tests of Life. (Ken- 
Lectures for 1909.) 436p. Clark, 1909. 
[An elaborate study of the first epistle of St John. ] 



712 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



8 Moffatt (J.) Wellhausen and Others on 
the Apocalypse. Expos., Mar. 1909. 

9 Plummer (A.) The Relation of the 
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs to the 
Books of the New Testament. 

Expos., Dec. 1908. 

[Challenges Charles' view that the parallels are 
due to the dependence of the N.T. on the Testa- 
ments. P. reverses the case, asking why the 
admitted Christianising of the Testaments may 
not Imve been extended to the insertion of N.T. 
parallels and why, on Charles' theory, the 
influence of the Testaments on the Fathers 
should be practically non-existent.] 

Charles (R. H.) The Testaments of the 
Twelve Patriarchs in Relation to the New 
Testament. Expos., Feb. 1909. 

fAn answer to Plummer.] 

Deismann (A.) Primitive Christianity 
and the Lower Classes. Expos., Feb. 1909. 

[Describing some of the detail of the life of the 
people of the period as gathered from papyri 
and ostraca.] 

Deismann (A.) Primitive Christianity 
and the Lower Classes. Expos., Mar. 1909. 

Gry (L. } Le messianisme dos paraboles 
d'Henoch. Le Museon, vol. ix. No. 4. 

Mari (F.) Le Idee escatologiche del 
Libro di Enoch (to be continued). 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog., Jan. 1909. 

Ragg (L. ) The Mohammedan Gospel of 
Barnabus. Church Q. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Concludes that this Vienna MS. had a Venetian 
origin towards the end of the sixteenth century, 
but that there was an earlier Italian original of 
the fourteenth century.] 



C CHURCH 14 ' Social Problems, 20 " 
Polity, 42 " Liturgical, 50 " Sacraments, 
60 Missions. 

M'Gi/ert (A. C.) Was Jesus or Paul the 
Founder of Christianity ? 

Amer. J. Th., Jan. 1909. 

[As an institution, and a system of principles, 
beliefs, and practice, the Church must be traced 
back to St Paul. The underlying spirit and 
gospel of it come from Jesus.] 

14 Nonconformist Minister . Nonconformity 
and Politics : A Word from Within. 

Fort. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Protest against the tendency of Nonconformity 
to make political pronouncements, to look upon 
itself as called upon for direct interference in 
the political questions of the hour, to constitute 
itself officially a champion of political ideas.] 

16 Tolstoy (Leo} The Law of Force and the 
Law of Love. I. Fort. R., March 1909. 
["The cause of the wretched condition of the 
Christian nations is the absence of a supreme 
conception, common to them all, of the meaning 
of life, of faith, and of guidance for conduct 
resulting from faith." A plea for the Christian 
teaching in its real meaning.] 

Carnegie (W. H.) Churchmanship and 
Character. 272p. John Murray, 1909. 

[The Christian is (i.) a natural life, for by nature 
man is subject to the supreme authority of con- 
science; (ii.) a complete life, for its principle is 
applicable to the whole range of man's activities ; 
(iii.) A free life, freedom through submission to the 
highest law ; (iv.) a supernatural life. A great 
Church movement will not arise till (i.) the Church 
type of character is recognised as the best type ; 
(ii.) the Church's organised activities bear visible 
witness to the greatness of her ideal and power.] 

21 Brooke (Hubert) and Others. The Church 



of Christ : Its True Definition. Preface by 
the Dean of Canterbury. 152p. 

Scott, 1908. 

[A call by evangelical pastors for the concen- 
tration of ministerial work on the salvation of 
men's souls, on their deliverance from sin, by 
faith in Christ, and on the purification of their 
souls by the Holy Spirit.] 

Faunce (William Herbert Perry) The 
Educational Ideal in the Ministry. (Lyman 
Beecher Lectures, 1908.) 293p. 

Macmillan, 1908. 

[Lectures deal with (i.) Place of the Minister in 
Modern Life ; (ii.) Attitude of Religious Leaders 
toward New Truth ; (iil.) Modern Uses of Ancient 
Scripture ; (iv.) Demand for Ethical Leadership ; 
(v.) Service of Psychology; (vi.) Direction of 
Religious Education ; (vii.) Relation of the 
Chureh and the College ; and (viii.) Education of 
the Minister by his Task.] 

Dykes (J. Oswald) The Christian 
Minister and His Duties. 379p. 

Clark, 1908. 

[This volume by the former Principal of West- 
minster College, Cambridge, is designed to meet 
the requirements of candidates for sacred office 
and of the junior clergy, not in one Church only, 
but in every evangelical communion. The four 
parts deal with (i.) The Modern Minister; (ii.) 
The Minister as Leader in Worship ; (iii.) The 
Minister as Preacher ; (iv.) The Minister as 
Pastor.] 

53 Mangenot (E.) Les soi-disant ant- 
cedents juifs de la sainte Eucharistie. 

R. du Clerge frangais, Feb. 15, 1909. 

[Describes the recent theories of Box and others, 
and rejects them. These writers have made an 
error in the interpretation of the Mischna, and by 
joining to the true Kiddusch (which was a special 
ceremony for feast-days) a blessing of the bread, 
which was a daily custom, they have created an 
imaginary Kiddusch which bears some resem- 
blance to the Last Supper, and have quite 
wrongly supposed their original identity.] 
56 M' Kenna ( P. ) The Tribunal of Penance. 
Irish Theol. Quar. , Jan. 1909. 

D DOCTRINE 10 God, 22 - Christ, 60" 
Eschatology, 70 " Faith, 90 Apologetics. 

Mathews (8.) A Positive Method for an 
Evangelical Theology. 

Amer. J. Th., Jan. 1909. 

Mackintosh (H. R. ) The Unio Mystica 
as a Theological Conception. 

Expos., Feb. 1909. 

[The mystical union with Christ is vital in St 
Paul and especially in St John, and is the funda- 
mental idea in the theory of redemption. The 
union is inclusive of, but transcends, the moral.] 
2 Herbermann (C. G.) and Others, Ed. 
The Catholic Encyclopedia : An Inter- 
national Work of Reference on the Con- 
stitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History 
of the Catholic Church. Vol. iv. Claud - 
Diocesan. 814p. 

Caxton Publishing Co., 1908. 

Perrier (J. Louis) The True God of 
Scholasticism. J. of Phil., Dec. 17, 1908. 

[God, according to scholasticism, is not a 
general manager who directs his business from 
a distance. He takes care of the minutest 
events of the world.] 

MocRory (J.) Loisy's Theories in the 
Light of his Later Writings. 

Irish Theol. Quar., Jan. 1909. 

["Not the Catholic Church alone, but every 
Christian Church and sect of whatever shade, 
would be the merest sham if Loisy's views were 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 713 



correct. If Christ were not God, if He did not 
die for man's salvation, if He founded no Church 
and instituted no sacraments, what solid reason 
can be given or defence made for the existence of 
any Christian institution? "] 

Dubpis (F.) La ve"rite du Catholicisme. 
V. L'Evangile et le dogme. 

R. du Clerge franais, Feb. 1, 1909. 

[Defending, against Loisy, "the Catholic con- 
ception which derives dogma from the Gospel."] 

Egerton (Hakluyt) Father Tyrrell's 

Modernism : An Expository Criticism of 

"Through Scylla and Chary bdis" in an 

open letter to Mr Athelstau Riley. 216p. 

Kegan Paul, 1909. 

[Criticises what is taken to be the Modernist's 
central doctrine that revelation is "experience" 
not "statement."] 

Johnston (J. S.) Sabatier's "Modern- 
ism." Interpreter, Jan. 1909. 

[Writer discerns in Modernism a tendency to- 
wards drawing a sharp distinction between 
"historical truth" and what is called "faith- 
truth." Another tendency shows itself in a 
species of Pragmatism, an inclination to place 
"judgments of value" above standards of truth.] 

Henslow (G.) The Vulgate : The Source 
of False Doctrines. 151 p. 

Williams & Norgate, 1909. 

[Object to show that, since the knowledge of 
the Bible in the early centuries of our era was 
based entirely upon the Vulgate, a familiarity 
with the Greek language being in abeyance, this 
Latin version supplied nearly all the terms 
required for ecclesiastical doctrines.] 
3 Round (J. Horace) A New Anglican 
Argument. Cont. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Deals with Dr Henry Gee's paper on "The 
Continuity of the Anglican Church "at the last 
Church Congress.] 

5 Selbie (W. B.) Historic Fact and 
Christian Doctrine. Cont. R., Feb. 1909. 

[It was the force of the personality of Christ 
which originated the Christian Church, and has 
transformed and inspired men and women all 
through its history. The history of the Person 
is not confined to the few years that Jesus spent 
on earth, but is spread over the ages, and is to be 
studied in the results it has produced. In esti- 
mating it we must believe, as Emerson puts it, 
"what the years and the centuries say against 
the hours."] 

17 May (Joseph} Miracles and Myths of 
the New Testament. 144p. P. Green, 1908. 

[Rejects the miraculous.] 

26 Foley (George Cadwalader) Anselm's 
Theory of the Atonement. (Bohlen Lec- 
tures, 1908.) 342p. Longmans, 1909. 

[Primary purpose of this study is negative, to 
exhibit the lack of authority for the theory framed 
by the Reformation divines. Contains a full 
exposition and detailed criticism of Cur Deus 
Homo,] 

27 Robinson (C. H.) Studies in the Resur- 
rection of Christ. 160p. Longmans, 1909. 

[A concise examination of the evidence for 
and against the Resurrection by the editorial 
secretary of the S.P.G.] 

29 Nayler (T.) Light on the Advent. 
187p. Elliot Stock, 1909. 

[The thesis is that "tt-s advent, or second 
coming of the Messiah, took place, in fulfilment 
of prophecy, at the end of the siege and de- 
struction of Jerusalem and its magnificent temple 
by the Romans (A.D. 70)."] 

60 Oesterley (W. 0. E.) The Doctrine of 
Last Things, Jewish and Christian. 244p. 
Murray, 1908. 

[Written for working or for lay readers interested 
in theology, of which the maiu object is to study, 
with illustrative quotations, the eschatological 



teaching (i.) in the O.T., (ii.) in the Apocalyptical 
literature, (iii.) in Rabbinical literature.] 
65 Thompson (John Day) The Doctrine of 
Immortality : Its Essence. Relativity, and 
Present-day Aspects. (Hartley Lecture, 
1907.) 277p. Edwin Dal ton, 1909. 

[Argues for Pre-existence and Re-incarnation.] 

Holmes (E. E.) Immortality. 335p. 

Longmans, 1908. 

[A thoughtful working-out of the Churches' 
doctrine of immortality. The book contains 
much that will be helpful to the laymen for 
whom it is intended.] 

Burney (C. F.) Israel's Hope of Immor- 
tality. Four lectures. 105p. 

Frowde, 1909. 

[An attempt to trace with some amount of 
exactitude the growth of a belief in a future life 
in the religion of Israel.] 

Potter (Beresford) Some Christian Con- 
ceptions of Immortality and Resurrection in 
the Ancient Egyptian Religion. 

Interpreter, Jan. 1909. 

Stead ( W. T. ) How I know that the 
Dead return. Fort. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Gives instances from personal experience of a 
class of messages for which telepathy from in. 
carnate minds, conscious or unconscious, cannot 
account.] 

Bascom (J.) Immortality. 

Biblioth. Sacra, Jan. 1909. 

80 Richmond ( Wilfrid) The Creed in the 

Epistles. 135p. Methuen, 1909. 

[A survey of the Creed of the first age of the 
Church as exhibited in the early epistles of St 
Paul.] 

E ETHICS. 6 Christian Ethics, 7-9 
Transition to General Ethics, 10 Theories, 
20 Applied Ethics, Sociology, 23 Economics, 
27 Education. 

10 Guskar (H.) Der Utilitarismus bei 
Mill und Spencer in kritischer Beleuchtung. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xv. 1, 1909. 

[A real basis for the truly empirical treatment 
of ethics is only to be found speculatively in the 
life of impulse in man. It is reason that trans- 
forms animal impressions into ideas, and raises 
them into conscious determinations of the will.] 

Tichy (Gustav) Altruismus und Gerech- 
tigkeit. 
Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 4, 1908. 

Rauh (F. ) L'experience morale. 

Rev. de Meta. et de Morale, Jan. 1909. 

[Preface to the second edition of the author's 
book under this title.] 

Mutter- Freienf els (Richard) Die Bedeu- 
tung des Aesthetischen fiir die Ethik. 
Vierteljahrssch. f. wiss. Phil., xxxii. 4, 1909. 

[Author distinguishes three main kinds of effect 
which aesthetic influences have upon the moral 
conditions of life called by him the auflockerndt , 
the auswdhlende, and the befreiende.] 

Aars (Kristian B. R.) Der Hass und 
die Liebe. 
Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 3, 1908. 

Dugas (L.) L'antipathie dans ses 
rapports avec le caractere. 

Rev. Phil., March 1909. 

Hilferding (0.) Die Ehre : Ihr Wesen 
und ihre Bedeutung im Leben. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xv. 1, 1909. 

Deploige (S. ) Le conflit de la morale et 
de la sociologie (siiite). 

Rev. Neo-Scolastique, Feb. 1909. 



714 



THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 



Jones (E. E. Constance) A Primer of 

Ethi5S. 109p. Murray, 1909. 

[A brief Introduction.based largely on Sidgwick.] 

20 Eficz (Ludung) Die Rechtsphilosophie 

in Ungarn. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xv. 1, 1909. 

Whetham ( W. C. D. ) Inheritance and 

Sociology. 19th Cent., Jan. 1909. 

Trotter ( W.) Sociological Applications 

of the Psychology of Herd Instinct. 

Sociological R., Jan. 1909. 
Barnett (S. A.) and Mrs Barnett. To- 
wards Social Reform. 352p. Unwin, 1909. 
[See p. 684.] 

Reason ( Will) Poverty. Preface by L. G. 
Chiozza Money. (Social Service Series.) 
175p. Headley Brothers, 1909. 

Bosanquet (Helen) The Poor Law Report 
of 1909. 270p. Macmillan, 1909. 

[A summary, explaining the defects of the 
present system and the principal recommenda- 
tions of the Commission, so far as relates to 
England and Wales.] 

Good (T.) Unemployment from the 
' ' Unemployed " Point of View. 

19th Cent., Jan. 1909. 
Gide (C.) Les contrats do travail. 

Le Christianisme social, Jan. 1909. 
[Discusses work and wages' contracts between 
capital and labour. J 

Urwick (E. J.) Causes and Remedies of 
Unemployment. Church Q. R., Jan. 1909. 
Beveridge ( W. H. ) Unemployment : A 
Problem of Industry. 333p. 

Longmans, 1909. 

[A course of lectures delivered in Oxford during 
the Michaelmas term, 1908.] 

Hobson (J,A.) The Psychology of Public 
Business Enterprise. 

Sociological R., Jan. 1909. 

Savage (G. H.) The Control of the 

Feeble- Minded. Quar. R., Jan. 1909. 

[With reference to the Report of the Royal 

Commission.] 

National Social Purity Crusade. The 

Cleansing of a City. 177p. Greening, 1908. 

[Essays by clergy of all denominations on how 

best to safeguard purity of thought and deed 

during the perilous years of adolescence.] 

Barry ( W. ) The Censorship of Fiction. 

Dub. R., Jan. 1909. 

Passy (P. ) Christianisme et Socialisme. 
Le Christianisme social, Jan. 1909. 
[1st art. "There is a striking harmony between 
the two of which one appears to be the trans- 
position of the other into the material order."] 

Anon. Catholic Social Work in Germany. 
III. Organisation and Method. 

Dub. R., Jan. 1909. 

Belloc (Hilaire) The Measure of National 
Wealth. Dub. R., Jan. 1909. 

Dicey (A. V.} W T oman Suffrage. 

Quar. R., Jan. 1909. 
[Deals largely with Mill's arguments.] 
27 Earth (Paul) Die Geschichte der Erzie- 

hung in soziologischer Beleuchtung VII. 
Vierteljahrssch. f. wiss. Phil., xxxii. 4, 1909. 
[Deals with the condition of social classes in 
the time of the Renaissance and Reformation, 
with the spiritual significance of Italian Human- 
ism, and its influence upon the theory and practice 
of education.] 

Dclvolv6(J.) Conditions d'une doctrine 
morale educative (suite). 

Rev. de Meta. et de Morale, Jan. 1909. 



Winch (W. H.) A Modern Basis for 
Educational Theory. Mind, Jan. 1909. 

Andrews (C. F.) Indian Higher Educa- 
tion. I. A Criticism. 

Hindustan R., Jan. 1909. 

[Condemns the neglect of the Indian inherit- 
ance and of Indian ideals.] 

F PASTORALIA. 2 Sermons. 

Findlay (G. G.) Fellowship in the Life 
Eternal. 431p. II odder & Stoughton, 1908. 

Tucker (Horace Finn) Light forLc-- 
Days. 275p. Elliot Stock, 1909. 

[Studies of the Saints. Readings, Meditations. 
Devotions, and Illustrations for the minor 
festivals commemorated in the English K&lendar. 

Corbet (Roivland W.) Letters from a 

Mystic of the Present Day. 4th ed. 231 p. 

Elliot Stock, 1908. 

2 Peile (James H. F. ) Ecclesia Discens : 
The Church's Lesson from the Age. 3 1 1 \ . 
Longmans, 1909. 

[Sermons and essays, connected by a common 
thought, that the Church, which somehow seems 
to have lost the right and power to teach the 
world, has now to learn from it, if nothing else, 
at least how to become its teacher again.] 

Ellis (Percy Amley) Old Beliefs and 
Modern Believers. 191p. 

Andrew Mclrose, 1909. 

[Ten sermons by the Vicar of St Mary's, West- 
minister. The purpose is to deepen the convic- 
tion that the essential truths of Christianity 
appeal to every eye, and are not identified with 
the modes of apprehending them which belong 
to any passing generation.] 

Harder ( W. Garrett) The Other- World. 
199p. Macmillan, 1908. 

[A number of sermons designed to clear away 
unreal ideas as to the nature of the Other- World 
and to establish ethically tenable ones in their 
place.] 

Goodman (J. H.) The Chambers of 
Imagery, and other Sermons. (Methodist 
Pulpit Library.) 246p. Culley, 1909. 

Lewis (F. Warburton) The Work of 

Christ. (Methodist Pulpit Library.) 203p. 

Culley, 1908. 

[Seventeen sermons preached at Ilolly Park 
Church, Crouch Hill.) 

Talbot (E. Stuart) The Fulness of Christ. 
Three Sermons preached before the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, and other Papers. 73p. 
Macmillan, 1908. 

Gollancz (Hermann) Sermons and 
Address. 661 p. Unwin, 1909. 

[Uiven to Jewish audiences chielly at the Bays- 
water Synagogue. 1 

Mackay (D. S.) The Religion of the 
Threshold, and other Sermons. 377p. 

Hodder & Stoughton, 1909. 

G BIOGRAPHY. 2 English. 

Mitchell (H. B.) Swedenborg or the 
Mystic ? Theosoph. Quar., Jan. 1909. 

Philliinore (J. S.) Eugene Fromentin. 

Dub. R., Jan. 1909. 

1 Charmer (F.) and Houssaye (H.) Mar- 
cellin Berthelot, 

R. du Clerge frai^ais, Feb. 15, 1909. 

[Discourses pronounced at the French Academy 

on the election of the former to Berthelot's seat, 

giving a critical estimate of the man and his 

work.] 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 715 



2 Fleming (D. Hay} John Howie of 
Lochgoin! Princeton Th. R., Jan. 1909. 

[The "works and the forebears" of the author 
of The Scots Worthieu.] 

MacVannel (J. Angus} Edward Caird. 
J. of Phil., Dec. 3, 1908. 

[Caird was less original than either Jowett or 
Green, but was able through a unique power of 
assimilation to interpret Hegel more truly to 
English readers. ] 

Fishe (Marian H.) My Father's Busi- 
ness ; or, A Brief Sketch of the Life and Work 
of Agnes Gibson. 80p. 

China Inland Mission, 1908. 

I A record of missionary work in China.] 

Hamond (Mrs) A Fruitful Ministry : 
A Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Robert 
Henry Hamond. 289p. Thynne, 1909. 

Garratt (Evelyn R.) Life and Personal 
Recollections of Samuel Garratt. 325p. 

Nisbet, 1909. 

[The late Canon Garratt carried on a remark- 
able ministry, first in London, then for twenty- 
eight years at Ipswich.] 

Brown ( George) Autobiography. 

Pioneer, Missionary, and Explorer. 536p. 

Hodder & Stoughton, 1908. 

H HISTORY, x Persecutions C Chris- 
tian M Mediaeval R Modern 2 English. 

Ker ( William Paton ) On the Philosophy 
of History. Address to Historical Society 
of University of Glasgow. 25p. 

Maclehose, 1909. 

[Lays emphasis upon the sound critical judg- 
ment of Hegel and upon the value of his concep- 
tion of history.] 

V Adeney (Walter F.) The Greek and 
Eastern Churches. (International Theologi- 
cal Library.) 648p. T. & T. Clark, 1908. 

[Part i. traces the history of the main body of 
the Church throughout the Eastern provinces of 
Christendom, until by losing one limb after 
another this is seen to become more and more 
limited in area, although still claiming to be the 
one orthodox Church. In Part ii. there is taken 
up the stories of the separate Churches.] 
C Maude (J. H.) The Foundations of the 
English Church. (Handbooks of English 
Church History.) 244p. Methuen, 1909. 

[The six chapters deal with (i.) The Keltic 
Church, (ii.) Augustine and the Roman Mission, 
(iii.) Aidan and the Scotic Mission, (iv.) The Con- 
ference at Whitby and the Great Plague, (v.) 
Theodore and the Work of Consolidation, (vi.)The 
Eighth Century.] 

Cruttwell (C. T.} The Saxon Church 
and the Norman Conquest. (Handbooks of 
Church History.) 284p. Methuen, 1909. 

[From Ecgbehrt to Henry I.] 

Ramsay (Sir W. M.) A Laodicean 
Bishop. Expos., Dec. 1908. 

[A discussion for the elucidation of the various 
problems arising from the epitaph of the 
Lycaonian fourth-century bishop, Eugenius.] 

Gregory (G. R.) The Reading of Scrip- 
ture in the Church in the Second Century. 
Amer. J. Th., Jan. 1909. 

[Critical note on Paul Glaue's Die Vorlesung 
heiliger Schrtftenim Gottesdienste.] 

Aloe (E.) La vie et les miracles de S. 
Amator. Anal. Boll., torn, xxviii. fasc. 1. 

[Introduction and text.] 

Albertz (M.) Zur Geschichte der Jung- 
arianischen Kircheu-gemeinschaft. 

Th. St. u. Krit., Heft 2, 1909. 



[I.e. of the Arian body who followed Aetius and 
Eunomius. ] 

Lanzoni (F. ) Le origini del cristianesimo 
e del? episcopate nell' Etruria Rotnana 
(concluded). 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog. , Jan. 1909. 

Loofs (F. ) Zur Synode von Sardica. 

Th. St. u. Krit., Jan. 1909. 

Manned (U.) La topografia cristiana di 
Cosma Indicopleuste e 1' insegnamento teo- 
logico nella Scuola Antiochena. 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog. , Jan. 1909. 

Ottolenghi (R. ) Problem! della primitiva 
storia cristiana. Ccenobiura, Jan. 1909. 

[Reply to Professor Labanca's criticism of the 
author's extreme negative position in biblical 
criticism.] 

Stcrnberg (G.) Das Christentum des 
fiinften Jahrhunderts im Spiegel der 
Schrifteu des Salvianus von Massilia (con- 
clusion). Th. St. u. Krit., Heft 2, 1909. 

Vogt (A.) Vie de S. Luc le Stylite. 

Anal. Boll., torn, xxviii. fasc. 1. 

[Introduction and text.] 

R Maes (L.) Lettves inedites d' Andre 
Schott. Le Museon, vol. ix., No. 4. 

[Correspondence with Hugo Grotius, Gevartius, 
and others. ] 

MacCaffrey (James) Dr Gairdner and 
the Reformation in England. 

Irish Theol. Quar., Jan. 1909. 

Anon. Venice and the Renaissance. 

Ediii. R., Jan. 1909. 



1 INDIVIDUAL CHURCHES AND 

WRITERS. C Fathers 2 R.C. 
Church 3 Anglican. 

C Slack (S. .) Early Christianity. 
(Religions, Ancient and Modern. ) 104p. 

Constable & Co., 1908. 
[A very useful and carefully written little book, 
making use of the results of the study of com- 
parative religion and of recent archaeological 
research in the East especially in Egypt.] 

Stalker (J.) Studies in Conversion. I. 
Justin Martyr. Expos., Feb. 1909. 

Jenkins (C.) Note on a Reading in 
Ensebius's Ecclesiastical History, i. 2. 

J. Th. St., Jan. 1909. 
Turner (C. H.) Notes on the Text of 
Origen's Commentary on 1 Corinthians. 

J. Th. St., Jan. 1909. 

2 O'Neill (H. C.), Ed. New Things and 
Old in Saint Thomas Aquinas : A Transla- 
tion of various Writings and Treatises of 
the Angelic Doctor, with an introduction. 
328p. Dent, 1909. 

[A useful series of selections.] 

Douais (Mgr. J.) Encore 1' Inquisition : 
La peine de mort pour heresie et 1'Eglise 
incompetente. 

R. prat. d'Apologet, Jan. 15, 1909. 

[A letter to an inquirer. The Bishop affirms 
that the Church did not and could not condemn 
to death.] 

Morison (J. L. ), Ed. Reginald Pecock's 
Book of Faith: A Fifteenth - Century 
Theological Tractate. Edited from the 
MS. in the Library of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, with an introductory essay. 
315p. Maclehose, 1909. 



716 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



Van Ortroy (F.) Une nouvelle histoire 
de la Compagnie de Jesus. 

Anal. Boll., torn, xxviii. fasc. 1. 
[Account of three volumes of the History now 
being written by members of the Society.] 

Ward (Mgr.) English Catholics in the 
Eighteenth Century. Dub. R., Jan. 1909. 

3 Anon. The Dearth of Clergy. 

Church Q. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Finds the prime cause not in the Archbishop 
of Canterbury's committee's "financial reasons," 
but in theological unrest. Some practical sug- 
gestions are made.] 

Anon. The Ornaments Rubric, legally 
and historically considered. 

Church Q. R.,Jan. 1909. 

[Neither the Injunctions of 1559 nor the Ad- 
vertisements of 1566 were the " taking of further 
order " forbidding the vestments of 1549 ; and 
even if they were, the deliberate introduction of 
the present rubric overrides them. In law, 
vestments are obligatory ; in practice, all that is 
possible is their permissive and regulated use.] 

Anon. Presbyterianism and Reunion. 

Church Q. R., Jan. 1909. 

[This could be effected by following the pre- 
cedent of 1610, when three' Presbyterian ministers 
were made bishops without previous ordination 
as deacons or priests. The bishops would become 
presidents of the General Assembly, all other 
features of government remaining unchanged.] 

4 Doumergue (E, ) Calvin : An Epigone of 
the Middle Ages or an Initiator of Modern 
Times? Princeton Th. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Claims Calvin as a formative influence in our 
modern development, against what he calls the 
Lutheran bias of Ritschlian writers.] 

5 Maclagan (Robert Craig) Religio Scotica : 
Its Nature as traceable in Scotic Saintly 
Tradition. 241 p. 

Schulze, Edinburgh, 1909. 
8 Milton (John) On the Son of God and 
the Holy Spirit. From treatise On Christian 
Doctrine. Introduction by Alexander 
Gordon. 147p. 
British and Foreign Unitarian Assoc., 1908. 



L LITERATURE. 2 English 3 German 
f> Italian 9 Classical. 

2 Austin (Alfred) Milton and Dante : A 
Comparison and a Contrast. 

Quar. R., Jan. 1909. 
Paul (Herbert) Milton. 

19th Cent., Jan. 1909. 
V Anon. Henry Irving. 

Edin. R., Jan. 1909. 

Escott (T. H. S.) The Works of Anthony 
Trollope. Quar. R., Jan. 1909. 

Cook (E. T.) and Weddcrburn (A.), Ed. 
The Letters of John Ruskin. (Library Edi- 
tion of Ruskin's Works, xxxvi. and xxxvii.) 
Vol. i. (1827-1869), 706p. Vol. ii. (1870- 
1889), 757p. George Allen, 1909. 

[Most of the letters appear for "the first time.] 
W E. M. D. The Writings of W. W. B. 
Yeats. Fort. R., Feb. 1909. 

Young (Filson) The New Poetry. 

Fort. R., Jan. 1909. 

[A very appreciative estimate of the poetry of 
John Davidson.] 

Newbolt (H.) A New Departure in 
English Poetry. Quar. R., Jan. 1909. 

[A very appreciative article on Mr Hardy's 
poem, "The Dynasts."] 



Tan. English Literature and the Indian 
Student. Cont. R., Feb. 1909. 

Lawson (Robb) The Psychology of 
Acting. Fort. R., March 1909. 

3 Meyer (R. M. ) German Literature. 

Cont. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Compares English and German conceptions of 
the nature of poetry and romance.] 

4 Kettle (T. M.) The Fatigue of Anatole 
France. Fort. R., Feb. 1909. 

Anon. The Novels of M. Ren6 Ba/:in. 

Church Q. Ii., Jan. 1909. 
[A sympathetic notice.] 

5 Reade ( W. H. V.) The Moral System of 
Dante's Inferno. 445p. Frowde, 1909. 

[Review will follow.] 

9 Zinvmern (A. E.) Was Greek Civilisa- 
tion based 011 Slave Labour ? 

Sociological R., Jan. 1909. 

[It is necessary to distinguish sharply between 
two sorts of slavery chattel-slavery and appren- 
tice-slavery. Both forms existed in the Greek 
city-state ; but the evidence seems to show that 
apprentice-slavery predominated.] 

Grundy (G. B.) Herodotus the His- 
torian. Quar. R., Jan. 1909. 

[With reference to Dr Macan's volumes on the 
last three books of Herodotus.] 

M RELIGIONS. MYTHOLOGY. 4 

Hinduism. 7 Judaism. 9 Demonology. 
12 Occultism. 

De Jong (K. H. E.) Das antike Mys- 
terienwesen in religiongeschichtlicher ethno- 
logischer und psychologischer Beleuchtung. 
372p. Brill, 1909. 

Frazer (J. G. ) Psyche's Task : A Dis- 
course Concerning the Influence of Super- 
stition on the Growth of Institutions. 93p. 
Macmillan, 1909. 

[Review will follow.] 

King (Irving) Some Notes on the 
Evolution of Religion. Phil. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Beginning with fetichism, religions are said to 
pass through animism, naturalism, higher pan- 
theism, henotheism, and ethical monotheism. 
All such schemes have a rough and ready merit, 
but at best they fail to take into account the 
great complexity of the data involved.] 

t LeRoy(A.) La Religion des Primitifs 
(Etudes sur 1'Histoire des Religions, I.) 
525p. Beauchesne, 1909. 

Harrison (Jane E.) The Divine Right 
of Kings. Fort. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Attempts to estimate the import of the fact 
that kings were anciently accounted gods not by 
the ancient Greeks alone, but by primitive 
peoples pretty well all over the world.] 

Johnston (C.) Natural Psychical and 
Spiritual Bodies. 

Theosophical Qu;ir., Jan. 1909. 

[Translation, with introduction, of " Gamla- 
pada's poem on the Mandukya Upanisha.1.' ] 

Mathur (J. S.) A Rationalistic View of 
the Arya Samaj. Vedic Mag., vol. ii.. No. 7. 

Keightley (A.) Theosophy as an Influ- 
ence in Life. Theosnph. Quar., Jan. 1909. 

Raleigh (Sir T. ) The Mind of the East. 
Church Q. R., Jan. 1909. 

[An interpretation of Indian thought and 
customs.] 

II', 'He (A. K.) The Hidden Church of 
the Holy Grail. 714p. Rebman, 1908. 

[An elaborate investigation of the Grail legend, 
and its connection with a " Hidden Church of 
Sacramental Mystery. "] 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 717 



7 Schechter (S. ) Some Aspects of Rabbinic 
Theology. 406p. Macmillan, 1909. 

Gollancz (Hermann) The Targum to 
' ' The Song of Songs " ; The Book of the 
Apple ; The Ten Jewish Martyrs ; A Dia- 
logue on Games of Chance. Translated 
from the Hebrew and Aramaic. 21 9p. 

Luzac, 1908. 

Isaacs (A. 8.) What is Jewish Litera- 
ture? Biblioth. Sacra, Jan. 1909. 

Bricout (J. ) Chez les Israelites franais. 
L'Union liberale Israelite. 

R. du Clerge fran<;ais, Jan. 15, 1909. 

[Liberal Judaism, under its Hebraic forms, is 
theism, organised as a religion.] 
9 Thompson (R. Campbell) Semitic Magic : 
Its Origin and Development. 354p. 

Luzac, 1908. 

Le^iba (J. //. ) Magic and Religion. 

Sociological R., Jan. 1909. 

[Supports two theses : (1) the primary forms of 
Magic probably antedated Religion ; (-2) whether 
Magic antedated Religion or not, Religion arose 
Independently of Magic ; they are different in 
principle and independent in origin.] 
12 Harris (J. Rendel) The Cult of the 
Heavenly Twins. Cont. R., Jan. 1909. 

[What gives its real importance to the study of 
the Cult of the Twins lies not in the conservatism 
of seafaring men, but in the more striking 
tenacity of ecclesiastics of a certain type, who 
drink in paganism as if it were their native air.] 

rodmore (Frank) The Pedigree of 
Christian Science. Cont. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Endeavours to determine the reasons of Mrs 
Eddy's influence.] 

Schofield (A. T.) Spiritual Healing. 

Cont. R., March 1909. 

[Deals with the matter from the standpoint of 
a medical man. "There does reside in some 
persons a remarkable therapeutic agency, the 
cause of which I would suggest is, that by some 
unconscious means, and without effort, they are 
enabled to reach and stimulate the curative 
power resident in the patient."] 

Newconib (Simon) Modern Occultism. 

19th Cent., Jan. 1909. 

P PHILOSOPHY. IQ~ Metaphysics, 21 
Epistemology, 33 " Psychical Research, 40 " 
Psychology, 60 " Logic, 70 " Systems, 90 
Philosophers. 

Stein (Ludwig) Philosophische Stro- 
inungen der Gegenwart. 468p. Enke, 1908. 

Koigen (David) Jahresbericht iiber die 
Literatur zur Metaphysik, VI. (Fortsetzung). 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 4, 1908. 

[Deals mainly with Rickert's Philosophy of 
History.] 

Zielenczyk (A.) Ein Abschnitt aus der 
polnischen Philosophic der Gegenwart. 

Arch. f. system. Phil. N.F., xiv. 3. 1908. 

Leon (Xavier), Ed. Revue de Metaphy- 
sique et de Morale. Numero exceptionnel. 
393p. Colin, Nov. 1908. 

[Contains the papers in lull of the French con- 
tributors to the International Congress at Heidel- 
berg, and also a report of the proceedings of the 
sections and general meetings. The number 
opens with Boutroux's memoir on Philosophy in 
France since 1867.] 

Mittenzwey (Kuno) Der III. Inter- 
nationale Philosophenkongress. 
Vierteljahrssch. f. wiss. Phil., xxxii. 4, 1909. 

[Gives a good epitome of Windelband's address 
on the conception of law, and of the discussion 



thereon. The debate on Pragmatism the writer 
characterises as a complete waste of time.] 

Leard (Henri) Le troisieme congres 
international de Philosophic. 

Rev. (iePhil., Feb. 1909. 

[Refers particularly to the contributions of 
Royce, Croce, Boutroux, VViudelband, and Maier.] 

Armstrong (A. C.) The Third Inter- 
national Congress of Philosophy. 

Phil. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Refers especially to the addresses of Wiudel- 
band, Royce, Boutroux, and Maier at Heidelberg.] 

10 Read (Carveth) The Metaphysics of 
Nature. 2nd ed., with appendices. 385p. 

Black, 1908. 

Wendel ( Oeorg) Metaphy sische Ausblicke. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xv. 1, 1909. 

[Combines Kant's view of phenomena with 
Spinoza's conception of Attributes. The world of 
phenomena is as it were only one side of the 
thing in itself, but this may have, in Spinoza's 
phraseology, an infinite number of other attri- 
butes, wholly unknown to us.] 

Gaultier (Jules de) Les deux erreurs de 
la Metaphysique. Rev. Phil., Feb. 1909. 

11 Norstrom ( Vitalis) Naives und wissen- 
schaftliches Weltbild, II. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 4, 1908. 

[A complete and satisfying scientific representa- 
tion of the world will only be obtaiiied when the 
explanation of personality from nature is supple- 
mented by the explanation of nature from 
personality. ] 

Overstreet (H. A.) Change and the 
Changeless. Phil. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Change may be conceived as of a kind con- 
sistent with thorough wholeness of life : we find 
a suggestion of such change in creative work. 
Creative work in its perfection means unhindered 
self-expression ; and there is no contradiction in 
attributing such work to perfect being.] 

12 Wendel (Georg) Prolegomena. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 4, 1908. 

[Discusses the relation of the special sciences 
and the various branches of philosophy to 
philosophy.] 

Stein (Ludwig) Das Problem der 
Geschichte. 
Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 3, 1908. 

[Lays emphasis upon the great influence of 
Windelband's address on "History and Science."] 

Lifschitz (F.) Zur Kritik des Relativ- 
ismus. (Aus einer Methodologie der 
Wirtschaftswissenschaft. ) 
Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 3, 1908, 

[Relativism and dogmatism are not in fact 
antithetical. The doctrine that all is relative is 
in truth the most thorough-going dogmatic 
principle that was ever formulated.] 

13 Biddlecombe (A.) Thoughts on Natural 
Philosophy (with a new reading of Newton's 
first Law) ; and The Origin of Life. 32p. 

Ward & Sons, 1909. 

Jgnotus. Suggestions for a Physical 
Theory of Evolution, I. Fort. R., Feb. 1909. 

Rossignoli (C. G.) Le potenze dell' 
anima existono ? 

R. d. filosof. neo-scol., Jan. 1909. 

Driesch (Hans) The Science and Philo- 
sophy of the Organism. (Gilford Lectures 
before University of Aberdeen, 1908.) Vol. 
ii. 397p. Black, 1908 

Anon. Biological Problems of To-day. 
Edin. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Deals with the Mutation theory, the group of 
facts known by the name of Mendelisni, and 
the question of the inheritance of acquired 
characters. 



718 



THE UIBBERT JOURNAL 



Wallace (Alfred Jiussel) The World of 
Life as visualised and interpreted by 
Darwinism. Fort. R., March 1909. 

[Neither Darwinism nor any other theory in 
science or philosophy can give more than a 
secondary explanation of phenomena. Some 
deeper power or cause always has to be postu- 
lated. Beyond and above all terrestrial agencies 
there is some great source of energy and guiiiance, 
whicJi in unknown ways pervades every form uf 
organised life, and of which we ourselves are the 
ultimate and fore-ordained outcome.] 

Pettigrew (J. Sell) Design in Nature. 
Illustrated by nearly 2000 figures, largely 
original and from Nature. Three vols. 
1467p. Longmans, 1908. 

[Endeavours to explain that in plants and 
animals there is gradation and advance from 
lower to higher forms, according to a gradually 
ascending scale, as apart from evolution.] 

15 Rechenbcrg-Linten (Paid von) Die Zeit. 
Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xv. L, 1909. 

[Inquires "as to whether time is only a form of 
thought, or whether it is also a reality of the 
external world. 

16 DuJiem(P.} Le mouvement absolu et le 
mouvement relatif (Appendice). 

Rev. de Phil., Feb. and Mar. 1909. 

17 Gomer (A. de) Anie et niatiere. 

Rev. de Phil., Mar. 1909. 
19 Haldanc, (R. B.) The Logical Founda- 
tions of Mathematics. Mind, Jan. 1909. 

[Replies to B. Russell's strictures on the 
Address to Aristotelian Society. It is not true 
that the processes even of pure mathematics are 
only concerned with mere logical conceptions. 
Whether we look at the methods of Euclid or at 
those of Dedekind and Cantor, they start from 
actual concrete images and proceed by making 
abstraction from all, or as much as possible, that 
is not relevant to their purpose.] 

Voss (A.) Ueber das Wesen der Mathe- 
matik. 98p. Teubner, 1908. 

21 Bergson (H.) Le souvenir du present et 
la fausse reconnaissance. 

Rev. Phil., Dec. 1909. 

[A criticism of current explanations of the 
illusion that one is reliving some instants of 
one's past life, and an interpretation of the 
phenomenon as a result of the interplay of per- 
ception and memory under conditions of a 
lowered tone of attention to life.] 

Bradley (F. H.) On Our Knowledge of 
Immediate Experience. Mind, Jan. 1909. 
[Asks how " immediate experience " is able to 
know itself and to become for us an object. The 
answer is: "When my object is increased and 
the addition comes from that which was and is 
i'elt, there is, in such a case, first, a positive sense 
of expansion and of accord. And there is, next, 
an absence of the feeling of complete otherness 
and newness. We have not here quite the same 
experience as when the object is increased from 
the undistinguished not-self, but we have an 
experience more or less similar."] 

Fonsegrive (G.) Certitude et verite, 
III. and IV. 

Rev. de Phil., Dec. 1908 and Jan. 1909. 
[Strongly criticises Pragmatism.] 
Chovet (F.) Les principes premiers : leur 
origine et leur valeur objective. 

Rev. de Phil., March 1909. 
[Discusses Fonsegrive's articles.] 
Raff (Emil) Ueber die Formen des 
Denkens. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 4, 1908. 
[Maintains that " the Ego is that which stands 
in the way of knowledge of the Ego."] 

Rey (Abel) L'e nergetique et le mecanisme 



au point de vue des conditions de la con- 
naissance. 187p. Alcan, 1908. 

Micault(H.) Sur de recents travaux de 
philosophic physique d'Abel Rey. 

Rev. de Meta. et de Morale, Jan. 1909. 
Dewey (John) Objects, Data, and Exist- 
ences : A Reply to Professor M 'Gil vary. 

J. of Phil., Jan. 7, 1909. 
Lossk/j (A T .) Thesen xur Gruudleguug 
des Intuitivismus. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 3, 1908. 

Perry (Ralph Barton) The Hiddenness 

of the Mind. J. of Phil., Jan. 21, 1909. 

[The mere fact that ideas are always included 

within some mind, and thereby excluded from 

what is altogether not that mind, contributes no 

evidence for the absolute privacy of mind.J 

Canella (G.) Gli elemeuti di fatto per 
la soluzione del problema criteriologico 
fondamentale. 

R. d. filosof. neo-scol., Jan. 1909. 

! 23 Baumann (Juliics) Der Wissensbegriff. 

239 p. Winter, 1908. 

Gabrilowitsch (Leonid) Ueber zwei wis- 

, senschaftliche Begriffe des Denkeus. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xvi., 1909. 
[An able article on the distinction between the 
logical and psychological treatment of thought. 
Largely on the lines of Husserl, but introducing 
the Hegelian conception of an organic whole oi 
reality.] 

25 Richard (P.) La causalit6 instrumental. 

Rev. Neo-Scolastique, Feb. 1909. 

[An able discussion of the conception of 

eausality as an instrument of activity in nature.] 

Janssen (Otto) Gedanken liber den 

empirischen Ursprung der Kausalitiit ! 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 3, 1908. 
33 Boole (Mary Everest) The Message of 
Psychic Science to the World. 28 lp. 

Daniel, 1909. 

40 Joachim (Harold H.) Psychical Process. 
Mind, Jan. 1909. 

[If by the distinction between "logical con- 
tent" and "psychical process" it be meant to 
sever, within my knowing X, the X known from 
my knowing, and if the " psychical process " is 
such a severed process of knowing, then "psychical 
process " is either nothing at all, or at any rate 
nothing which I or anyone else can study.] 

Beaunis (H. ) Comment fonctionne mon 

cerveau : Essai de psychologic introspective. 

Rev. Phil., Jan. 1909. 

Maeder (A.) Une voie nouvelle en 

psychologic : Freud et son ecole. 

Coenobium, Jan. 1909. 
[Describes Freud's ideas, and gives analysis of 
a number of cases.] 

Wundt ( Wilhelm) Volkerpsychologie : 

Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungs- 

gesctze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. 

Bd. ii. Mythus und Religion. Dritter Teil. 

804p. Engelmaun, 1909. 

[This volume consists of two long chapters on 

the Natunnythus and the Unsprung der Religion. } 

42 Seligmann (R.) Zur Philosophic der 

Individualitat. 

Arch f. system. Phil., N.F., xv. 1, 1909. 
[Every organism is an individual, and the most 
perfect organism known to us is self-conscious- 
ness or personality.] 

48 Gehrinci (Albert) Racial Contrast,-. 

243p. Putnam's Sons, 1908. 

[A study in race psychology made with the 

purpose of differentiating the moral, intellectual, 

and spiritual qualities revealed in the literature, 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 719 



life, and art of the Greeco-Latm peoples from the 
characteristics of the Teutonic race as seen in 
the same fields.] 

Dugas (L. ) Psychologic et pedagogic ou 
science et art. 

Rev. de Meta. et de Morale, Jan. 1909. 
4 Myers (Charles S.) Text-book of Ex- 
perimental Psychology. 448p. 

Arnold, 1909. 

[Professor Myers' book is designed to meet a 
keenly felt want. It contains a very full and 
accurate account of recent experimental work, 
and discusses the conclusions to which such 
research leads. The book will be indispensable 
to every student of psychology, as well as to the 
worker in the laboratory.] 

Sidis (Boris) An Experimental Study of 
Sleep. 106p. Badger, 1909. 

53 Judd (Charles H. ) What is Perception ? 
J. of Phil., Jan. 21, 1909. 
[Defends the position that percepts do not con- 
tain revived elements in any such fashion as 
appears in the conventional discussions.] 

Judd (Charles H.) Motor Processes and 
Consciousness. J. of Phil., Feb. 18, 1909. 
[Unity of percepts and unity of ideas are 
I>hrases which describe an aspect of conscious- 
ness dependent on motor tendencies.] 
Tassy (E. ) De la connexion des idees. 

Rev. Phil., Feb. 1909. 
[Discussion of association by contiguity, resem- 
blance, and contrast.] 

Beaupuy (P. ) Psychologic de la pensee. 

Rev. de Phil., Jan. 1909. 

[Considers the development from perception 

to conception, and discusses the function of 

images in thinking.] 

tipindler ( Frank N. ) Some Thoughts on 
the Concept. J. of Phil., Dec. 3, 1908. 

[A concept is more than merely a class notion, 
or a class idea, or a general idea ; it involves 
complicated fuuctionings, many unnoticed motor 
tendencies, and, especially, it involves and must 
have a name.] 

f7 Marshall (H. Rutgers) Algedonics and 
Sensationalism. J. of Phil., Jan. 7, 1909. 
[Defends his view of pleasure-pain as against 
Titchener.] 

Judd (Charles H.) The Doctrine of 
Attitudes. J. of Phil., Dec. 3, 1908. 

[Defends the thesis that the feelings are more 
subjective than sensations and are closely related 
to complex subjective organisations or reactions 
of the individual upon his sensations.] 
5y Pikler (Julius) Ueber Theodor Lapps' 
Versuch einer Theorie des Willens. 58p. 

Earth, 1908. 

Pikler (Julius) Zwei Vortrage iiber 
dynamische Psychologic. 26p. Earth, 1908. 

60 Urban (F, M. ) On a Supposed Criterion 
of the Absolute Truth of some Propositions. 

J. of Phil., Dec. 17, 1908. 
[Discusses Royce's contention that a proposi- 
tion is absolutely true if its denial implies the 
proposition.] 

61 Bubnoff (Nicolai von) Das Wesen und 
die Voraussetzungen der Induktion. 

Kantstudien, xiii. 4, 1908. 
[A careful study, in four parts, dealing with (i.) 
the general characteristic of the inductive 
methods, criticising the views of Erdmann ; (ii.) 
the presuppositions of inductive procedure ; (Hi.) 
the problem of the irreversibility of natural laws ; 
(iv.) induction in history.] 
l>9 Chide (A.) La logique de 1'analogie. 

Rev. Phil., Dec. 1908. 
[Logicians usually regard analogy as of second- 
ary importance, but it is involved in the estab- 
lishment of all general notions whether of 
inductive or deductive logic.] 



Sageret (J. ) L'anaiogie scientifique. 

Rev. Phil., Jan. 1909. 

[Scientific theory, hypothesis, experience, 
observation, scientific fact and generalisation, 
synthetical and analytical progress in knowledge , 
everything, in a word, in science, is traceable 
either directly or indirectly to analogy.] 

72 Prichard (H. A.) Kant's Theory of 
Knowledge. 320p. Clarendon Press, 1909. 
I An attempt to think out the nature and tena- 
bility of Kant's transcendental idealism, an 
attempt animated by the conviction that even the 
elucidation of Kant's meaning, apart from any 
criticism, is impossible, without a discussion on 
their own merits of the main issues which he 
raises. The standpoint of the author is that of a 
critical realism.] 

Honigsivald (Richard) Zum Begrifl der 
kritischen Erkenntuislehre. 

Kantstudien, xiii. 4, 1908. 

[With special reference to Goswin Uphues' book 
Kant und seine Vorgcinger. Whilst criticising 
Uphues' work, the author ascribes great value to 
it.] 

Wendel (Georg) Kritik eiuiger Grund- 
begriffe des transzendentalen Idealismus. 
Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xiv. 3, 1908. 

[Criticises Kant's separation of understanding 
and reason, and especially the distinction of 
knowledge and thought, which in truth are one 
and the same. 

74 James ( William) Hebert's Le Pragma - 
tisme. J. of Phil., Dec. 3, 1908. 

[ " The object, for me, is just as much one part 
of reality as the idea is another part. The truth 
of the idea is one relation of it to reality, just as 
its date and its place are other relations. All 
three relations consist of intervening parts of the 
universe which can in every particular case be 
assigned and catalogued."] 

Huizinga (A. v. C. P.) The American 
Philosophy of Pragmatism. 

Biblioth. Sacra, Jan. 1909. 

Schinz (Albert) Anti-pragmatisme : Ex- 
anien des droits respecting de 1'aristocratie 
intellectuelle et de la democratic sociale 
309p. Alcan, 1909. 

Pratt (J. Bissett) What is Pragmatism 
268p. Macmillan, 1909. 

[An able criticism. " When the movement first 
began, "the writer says, "I was an enthusiastic 
pragmatist, and my enthusiasm lasted until I 
came to understand clearly what it really meant." 
Author maintains that the "pragmatist" is at 
every point making use of the very conception of 
truth he is trying to refute ; he is claiming for 
his doctrine the very kind of truth which he says 
is no truth at all.] 

Chiappelli (A.) Naturalisme, human- 
isnie et philosophic des valeurs. 

Rev. Phil., March 1909. 

[Pleads for a Neo-Hegelianism which shall be 
enriched with all the ethical elements implied in 
the conception of an immanent end that is asso- 
ciated with voluntarism. The glory of man 
consists in the pursuit of virtue and knowledge, 
but not in possessing these in their entirety ; 
otherwise every spiritual activity would be dead.] 

Lessing ( Theodor) Philosophic als Tat. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., N.F., xv. 1, 1909. 

[The aim and purpose of all speculative philo- 
sophy should be ethical. But "Philosophic ale 
Tat " is not to be identified with Positivism or 
Pragmatism. The doctrine that truth is that 
which works is the triviality of the "English 
common-sense " gone mad.] 

Doan (Frank C.) An Outline of Cosmic 
Humanism. J. of Phil., Feb. 4, 1909. 

[On the ground of known experience the 
humanist may insist (a) that the cosmos con- 
ceived as world-experience must be inwardly a 



720 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



pure function, and (b) that in its initial processes 
of growth it was an inchoate matrix of perfectly 
plastic yet blind impulses-to-be.] 

76 Miranda (L. ) II Positivismo de Roberto 
Ardigo. Coenobium, Jan. 1909. 

[It is the old sensationalism against which 
" the dissolving sceptical criticism of Hume is 
eternal."] 

77 Uryuhart (W. S.) The Pessimistic 
Tendency of Pantheism. 

Cont. R., March 1909. 

[Spinoza's philosophy destroys the springs of 
action within us, and at the same time we cannot 
see that action is unnecessary. Yet the felt 
need of action is but a mockery of our helpless- 
ness, and serves only to make us realise the weight 
of our fetters. \Ve fee) as if we were walking in 
a dream, lost in the emptiness of infinity, com- 
panionless on the earth, or wandering in a world 
of shades.] 

79 Sichler (Albert) Ueber falsche Inter- 
pretation des kritischeu Realismus Wundt's 
(Fortsetzung). 

Arch. f. system. Phil, N.F., xiv. 3, 1908. 
[Defends Wundt against criticisms of Maier 
and Kiilpe. Insists that according to Wuudt 
the metaphysical conception of will is to be 
clearly distinguished from the conception of the 
will as a psychical fact.] 

80 Bakewell (C. M.) Source Book in Ancient 
Philosophy. 395p. Unwin, 1909. 

[Translated extracts from writers from Thales 
to Plotinus by the Professor of Philosophy at 
Yale.] 

84 Laguna (Theodore de) The Interpreta- 
tion of the Apology. Phil. R., Jan. 1909. 

[Socrates stood to Plato as the very incarnation 
of the spirit of philosophy. To depict his 
personality meant to show to the world how a 
true philosopher had lived and died. The 
Apology, then, is an apology, not alone for the 
historical individual, but for the philosophical 
life.] 

85 Smith (J. A.) and Ross (W. D.), Eds. 
The Works of Aristotle, translated into 
English. Vol. viii. Metaphysica. Trans. 
by W. D. Ross. xv + 980a to 10936p. 

Clarendon Press, 1908. 
[A very careful and scholarly piece of work that 
will be invaluable to philosophical students.] 

89 Deploige (S.) La filosotia neo-scolastica 
et le scienze sociali. 

R. d. filosof. neo-scol., Jan. 1909. | 
Sentroul (C.) Che cos' e la filosofia neo- 
scolastica ? R. d. filosof. neo-scol., Jan. 1909. { 
[Discusses : (1) What is philosophy considered \ 
according to its purely ideal concept? (2) Which 
among the different philosophies is the true one? 
(3) In what relation does this true philosophy (i.e. 
the neo-scnolastic) stand towards the other forms 
of truth, i.e. science in the natural order, and the 
Catholic faith in the supernatural order ?] 

Picavet (F.) Thomisme et philosophies 
medieVales. 

Rev. Phil., Dec. 1903 and Jan. 1909. 

Belmond (Sdraphin) L'Etre transcendant 
d'apres Duns Scot. Rev. de Phil., Jan. 1909. 

90 Hoffmans (ffadelin) La sensibilite 
d'apres Roger Bacon. 

Rev. Neo-Scolastique, Feb. 1909. 



91 Alexander (S.) Locke. (Philosophies, 
Ancient and Modern. ) 91p. Constable, 1908. 
[Locke's philosophy is dealt with in a new and 
interesting light. It is insisted that Locke always 
uses the term " idea " for an object of mind. An 
"idea of sensation" is an idea supplied by sense; 
an "idea of reflection" is an act of perceiving, 
willing, thinking, or feeling, apprehended as an 
object. Locke's error lay in assigning to ideas a 
twilight existence between things and the mind.] 
Fraser (A. Campbell) Berkeley and 
Spiritual Realism. (Philosophies, Ancient 
and Modern.) 96p. Constable, 1908. 

[In this little volume Professor Fraser gives an 
account of Berkeley's life, and then deals with 
(i.) the material world and its natural order ; (ii.) 
the human world and moral disorder; (ML) God, 
or the Universal Mind, and Theistic Optimism. 
It is an excellent introduction to Berkeley's 
philosophy.] 

93 Spranger (Eduard) Wilhelm von Hum- 
boldt und die Humanittitsidee. 516p. 

Reuther & Reichard, 1908. 

94 Eenouvier (Ch.) et Secrttan (Ch.) Corre- 
spondance inedite. 

Rev. de Meta. et dc Morale, Jan. 1909. 
[The correspondence is largely upon questions 
connected with the philosophy of religion.] 

Andler (Charles) Le premier systeme de 
Nietzsche ou Philosophic de 1'illusion. 

Rev. de Meta. et de Morale, Jan. 1909. 

[i. The Illusion of Knowledge ; ii. The Illusion 
of Morality; iii. The Illusion of Art.] 

D'Aragona (R. G.) L' "Estetica" di 
Benedetto Croce. Coenobium, Jan. 1909. 

Le Corme (C.) Les vues philosophiques 
d'un academicien, M. Henri Poincare. 

Rev. chret, Feb. 1909. 



V ART. 83 Sacred Music. 

Ellis (Havelock) The Love of Wild 
Nature. Cont. R., Feb. 1909. 

[The appeal of wild Nature can only be perfectly 
felt by men who are, by temperament and circum- 
stance, rebels against the laws and conventions 
of their time. It is a passion that arises in ages 
of splendid individualism. We are drawn to-day 
to the more humanised and socialised forms of 
Nature, mixed with personal intercourse and 
deliberate art. We witness the revived love of 
beautiful gardens.] 

Martin (F.) Chronique artistique : La 
question Van Eyck. 

R. du Clerge francais, Feb. 15, 1909. 

[Seeks to answer the question as to who painted 
the great polyptych, the Mystic Lainb, the greater- 
part of which is at the Church of S. Bavon at 
Ghent.] 

Utitz (E.) Grundziige der aesthetischen 

Farbenlehre. 164p. Enke, 1908. 

20 Anon. Graeco - Roman and Roman 

Sculpture. Edin. R., Jan. 1909. 

83 Newman (Ernest) Mendelssohn in 1909. 

Cont. R., Feb. 1909. 

[Almost the whole of Mendelssohn is summed 
up in two typical works, one at the beginning 
and the other at the end of his career the over- 
ture to the "Midsummer Night's Dream" (1820), 
and " Elijah "(184).] 



[NOTE. For an explanation of the system of classification adopted in the Bibliography, 
readers are referred to HIBBERT JOURNAL, vol. i. p. 630 s??.] 

G. D. H. and J. H. W. 



THE 

HIBBERT JOURNAL 



RELIGIOUS LIFE AND THOUGHT 
IN GERMANY TO-DAY. 1 

PROFESSOR HEINRICH WEINEL, 

Jena. 

AT the end of the nineteenth century three essential influences 
were at work upon the intellectual and cultured life of 
Germany. The first was Natural Science its character 
almost entirely materialist. It gave itself out as a compre- 
hensive view of the world, was simplified and introduced to 
the people by a thousand busy hands, and became familiar 
to the masses. Its ethics were derived from Utilitarianism, 
which developed either along individualist and liberal lines, 
or else into Socialism. Side by side with this, Ultramontanism 
dominated a large section of the people Ultramontanism 
and the old world- view of the Catholic Church. This influence 
operated through the power of the clergy, especially of the 
very active lower clergy, and by means of an electoral 
apparatus which worked with extraordinary certainty. Neither 
movement has won any noteworthy increase of life in recent 
years. The leaders belong already to a past generation. 
Marx and Ketteler, Liebknecht and Windhorst, are as men 
of another world to our own day ; while even Bebel and 
Haeckel are, to their own age and its interests, survivals from 

1 Religiose Bestrebungen und Bewegungen in Deutschland, Translation revised 
by the Author. 

VOL. VII. No. 4. 721 46 



722 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the seventieth year of the nineteenth century. They are 
no longer the leaders of the generation which lives and works. 
The third of the intellectual influences aforesaid was dominant 
among the youth of the nation, in so far as this had not 
fallen, really or apparently, into a neurotic and decadent 
condition. This was Individualism, whose most conspicuous 
leader was, not so much Nietzsche, as the strong man whom 
Nietzsche so bitterly hated Bismarck. For Bismarck, although 
in his own person an old-fashioned and pietistic Christian, 
impressed his age as an incarnation of " the will to rule " 
(Wille zur Macht). Among the most refined of our genera- 
tion, Individualism possessed a character of aesthetic and 
intellectual dignity, often a certain nobility ; among the half- 
educated, who misunderstood Nietzsche, it frequently became 
vulgar and base. Nevertheless, it appeared to be the only 
possible mode of life at a time when the scepticism diffused 
throughout our educated classes had almost entirely under- 
mined the old ethical values and their religious foundations. 

For the evangelical churches in Germany it is well known 
that we have more Churches than States persisted, of course, in 
the old ways ; but religious life had often withdrawn from them, 
and they counted for little in the intellectual life of the leaders 
of the nation. All the conservative elements of the national 
life, especially the nobles and the peasants, supported the 
Church as the guardian of what was established ; at the same 
time, however, Pietism, which was constantly growing, and 
is thoroughly orthodox, took its line as " Gemeinschafts 
bewegung" (a separatistic methodistic movement) of the 
laity rather outside the Church a line, indeed, thoroughly 
opposed to her interests. At the present moment this move- 
ment remains perhaps the most living element in the religious 
life of Germany ; intellectually it is wholly retrograde, but in 
religion it is extremely pushing and active, indeed so modern 
that it gives us Germans quite an American tone. Its best 
preacher is Samuel Keller, who is a well-known author (Ernst 
Schrill). His antiquated view of the world, with devils, hell, 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 723 

and a bodily resurrection, has an occasional appearance of 
being affected in so distinctly modern a man. Stoecker, who 
stood nearer to these circles he died a few weeks ago has 
remained much more closely bound to the Church, and has 
played a somewhat anti-pietistic part by taking a strongly 
political line, founding an anti-Semitic Christian-Socialist 
party, and engaging much more closely in current affairs than 
is usual with individualistic Pietism. But neither he nor 
Samuel Keller have any significance whatsoever in the 
intellectual life of Germany. They contribute nothing 
towards satisfying the needs of our educated people. 

And an actual religious need has in the meantime taken 
shape. The jubilation over the gains of modern culture and 
the victories of science is becoming silent. We are looking 
around us with sobered eyes and counting the gains and losses 
of the mighty labours of the vanished century. And we 
recognise that our life has indeed become richer and more 
stirring by reason of all the good things which commerce and 
technical science have conferred ; life has also become more 
secure, and easier even for the poorest. But the feeling exists 
that in reality we have not grown happier, nor inwardly richer, 
merely because we ride in trains and motors and are able in an 
instant to flash our thoughts through a wire from one end of 
the earth to another. Science grows continually more cautious 
and restrained, and feels her limits more intimately. She knows 
that the pretence of solving the " world-riddle " by her means 
alone is a mere echo of youthful enthusiasm ; and only our 
half-educated public, which founded the " League of Monists " 
two years ago, now listens to cant of this kind. Earnest 
workers in all branches of science know how narrow is the 
circle of what can be scientifically proved and exactly defined. 

In all quarters there is revealed a longing for new life- values, 
an aspiration towards what is eternal. A religious movement 
is waking into being, and men are longing for that deep, still 
happiness of the soul which can only be found in God for 
strength, fulness, joy, health, such as blossom only in a life 



724 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

wholly lived in the ideal. Needless to say, frivolity and 
stupidity are still plentiful, the pressure of old organisations of 
the churches, of the State, and of parties, powerful enough ; 
while radical resentment is widely diffused stronger, it may 
be, than the aspiration after that new life which is moving men's 
hearts. But that longing is an actually present fact even 
among the masses of Socialists and Ultramontanes. Even the 
Catholic Church has seen Modernism suddenly come forth into 
daylight a movement which had matured in complete silence 
as a protest of the heart against the reign of Ultramontanism. 
In Switzerland, at least, Social Democracy has again found 
the way to church, since Kutter in Zurich, and others, have 
found the way to the deeper needs of the social democrats. 

Idealism, long considered dead, is everywhere beginning to 
awake, and a rejuvenated and renewed Christianity is preparing 
to go forth among the people from venerable churches and 
from the quiet studies of scholars, announcing and testifying 
to that which has been discovered in the silence where the 
awakened desire for deeper life has made itself felt. 

Nevertheless, the philosophy of the present still hesitates. 
It is still too much under the influence of the period, just 
expiring, of exact historical and psychological departmentalism, 
whose masters for example, Erdmann, Stumpf, Windelband 
held aloof entirely from the new movement, though it is 
the fashion for everybody to reckon these men as idealists. 
Windelband, however, has written the prolegomena of a future 
systematic philosophy (Praludien). True it is that more than 
mere history is to be learnt from his historical books. And this 
holds with greater force in regard to the penetrating works of 
Dilthey. Nevertheless, it is significant that even these men 
constantly prefer to write history rather than constructive 
system. And even where system is professed, as in Wundt's 
immense compilation, one receives the impression that what is 
presented is rather a mighty collection formed from the results 
of the special sciences than a complete system developed from 
within. In sympathy with the demand for a fuller life, newly 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO DAY 725 

awakened among our people, Paulsen was an active influence 
chiefly in his last years, at least in so far as he held forth a clear 
and lofty ideal in regard to all questions of public interest. 
Nor did he take an attitude so elevated as to prevent him from 
speaking through the newspapers to his fellow-countrymen in 
a direct and incisive manner. 

But the strongest influence which the newly awakened life 
of the present is feeling is that of Rudolf Eucken. Difficult 
as most of his books are, they have rendered the greatest 
service in satisfying the demand for a deeper comprehension 
of Reality and the desire for religion. It is a mark of the 
strength of the young movement that Eucken's books are the 
most widely current philosophical writings of the present day. 
All of them have appeared in several editions, and new ones 
are constantly coming out. What his books give to the 
present age is the quiet consciousness of a belief in the inward 
and higher nature of man and in a universal life of the spirit, 
superior to all particular interests a life comprehensive and 
secure, in which the individual, with his ideals and his faith in 
God, feels himself able to defy the attacks of naturalism and 
the pressure of the perplexing materialist life of the present. 
Untiringly does Eucken call attention to the fact that a life 
of fuller content shines through the very struggles and per- 
plexities of our existence, and is indeed the origin both of their 
sufferings and their satisfactions. Only because of the vaster 
Deep which stirs within us, but comes not to full expression, 
are we in such uncertainty. And if our time is a time of self- 
criticism and of scepticism, this very fact, when seen from the 
other side, is only a proof that humanity bears within itself a 
standard transcending all individual opinion and arbitrary 
choice, and not to be shaken by anything that moves either 
in ourselves or in our circumstances. And if all things are 
viewed as in process of development, it follows that we must 
have within us something eternal and permanent, in the light 
of which we recognise the general flux of a world which is 
always in a state of becoming. Thus Eucken is ever guiding 



726 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

us back to an elementary matter of fact, to an independent 
life of the spirit, which transcends human consciousness, 
though it first appears in consciousness as upon the stage 
where the transition from nature to the conscious spiritual life 
is accomplished. Not without the decision and the action of 
man does this transformation take place. Human nature is 
founded upon its freedom and upon this affirmation of its 
higher life. But it is through the very effort to raise himself 
above his small and limited human existence that man first 
finds his true being, which is the spiritual world, present within 
him and stretching beyond him. 

This idealistic philosophy Eucken has built out on all its 
sides. But more especially he has developed it as a philosophy 
of religion presenting the Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion while 
avoiding the defects of the old dualistic religions. In 1907 
he went on to discuss the Hauptprobleme der Religions- 
philosophic. And in all his writings the religious note is 
heard. Indeed, what Eucken finally intends is a renovated 
and theoretically vindicated Christianity, in spite of his 
anxious avoidance of everything which has the appearance 
of metaphysical dualism. That Christianity and its logical 
foundations are his central concern is evident whenever he 
adversely criticises the modern idea of evolution so far as 
this may be applied to the moral and spiritual life of man. 
Eucken, again, continually makes it clear that something 
else is involved in the moral life, which is a sharp and distinct 
opposition of the higher to the lower stages of reality a 
conflict and an overcoming, and not a mere "evolution." In 
abandonment of the narrow and limited human attitude, a new 
kernel of character must be formed ; and not until the kernel 
exists is that wholeness of life attainable which draws into 
itself what has affinity with its own nature and repels what is 
hostile. Thus it is that Eucken places in the centre of his 
system nothing less than the essential Christian idea of the 
New Birth, though under another name. This is decisive as 
regards the Christian character of Eucken's philosophy. 



ELIG10US LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 727 

To heal the religious distress of our time by a renewed and 
deepened Christianity which understands its own nature and 
draws thence answers to the questions of our actual life this, 
in a far higher degree, is the distinctive purpose of our 
" Modern Theology." For a whole generation this theology 
has laboured in silence. Much exact work was devoted to the 
investigation of dogma and of the Old and New Testaments 
before this theology ventured into the conflict for a new 
content of life. But since the appearance of Harnack's Wesen 
des Christentums it has entered at a bound into the centre of 
public interest. If Eucken's writings have been read in 
thousands of copies, Harnack's book has found tens of 
thousands of readers few enough, it is true, in comparison 
with the two hundred thousand copies in which Haeckel's 
World Riddles have been sold. With these, however, Frenssen's 
novels have kept abreast in the number of their readers ; and 
of these Hilligenlei directly presents a life of Jesus which 
Frenssen has sketched, though not quite happily, on the lines 
of modern inquiry, while Jcern Ukl, a greater and stronger 
work, telling the story of a peasant's life in Holstein, is founded 
on views which reveal the best and deepest convictions of our 
Modern Theology. Besides these series of books, there is 
much other evidence that our people are demanding the very 
thing which Modern Theology is able to supply. 

Since the commencement of a movement in Rhineland and 
Westphalia which is called " Friends of Evangelical Freedom " 
and has now hundreds and thousands of members in nearly all 
towns of Rhineland, new life has come into all the old societies, 
such as the " Protestantenverein," and similar societies of 
evangelical freedom have been formed in other parts of Ger- 
many. New literary undertakings have come into existence, 
such as the Popular Tracts of the History of Religion ( Religions- 
geschichtliche Volksblicher), of which tens of thousands of 
copies have been circulated, and the Problems of Life (Lebens- 
fragen), of which the present writer is editor ; new journals 
have been founded, while those long established (of which 



728 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the most serious and important is the Christliche Welt, edited 
by Professor Rade in Marburg) have increased their circula- 
tion. Remarkable growth has been shown by the Gemeinde- 
blattfur Rheinland und Westfalen, conducted by Pastor Traub 
of Dortmund, a man of great activity and importance. This 
journal has recently adopted the title of Christliche Freiheit, 
and is devoted more especially to the church policy of the 
new movements. Orthodoxy, impressed by the scientific and 
practical successes of Modern Theology, has also received a 
new influx of life, and the demand has arisen for a " modern- 
positive," or a " modern theology of the old faith." Professor 
Seeberg is the leader of the first tendency ; Th. Kaftan, the 
Superintendent-General of Schleswig, is the champion of the 
second. Just as Seeberg has been influenced by Ritschl and 
Harnack, so the effect of the modern school of Historical 
Religion is distinctly traceable in the work of Seeberg's pupils 
Grlitzmacher in Rostock, Stange in Greifswald, and others. 
And notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of these men to 
the Theology of Historical Religion, they endeavour to imitate 
it in all their undertakings. In the same binding as that of 
the Tracts of the History of Religion they have published 
Biblical Questions of Present-day Controversy (Biblische Zeit 
und Streitfragen), have matched my Problems of Life with 
Problems of Eternity (Ewigkeitsfragen), and have started as a 
counterpart to the Theologische Rundschau a newspaper, Die 
Tkeologie der Gegenwart, and so forth. In all of which they 
merely display their thorough-going dependence, both inwardly 
and outwardly, upon Modern Theology. 

I have said so much concerning the external success of the 
various efforts of the modern school of German theology 
because the readers of the HIBBERT JOURNAL are presumably 
well-informed concerning its essential inner content. Of this 
latter a full description is not necessary, and a mere reminder 
will suffice. I need not inform them at great length of the 
significance of Harnack's work as a scholar, how his untiring 
industry and his penetrating genius have shaped for whole 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 729 

decades the problems of the time and everywhere promoted 
their solution. But I may be permitted in a few plain 
words to tell them what his name signifies in our religious 
life. He does not often appear in public. His chief love is 
given to his quiet scholar's study, though he plays an active 
part in life. At the present time he takes a leading part 
in all that concerns the management of libraries in Prussia ; 
he has rendered an essential service in bringing to 
completion the reform of Girls' Schools ; and for some 
years past he has been addressing his fellow-countrymen 
directly, and more frequently than before, through the 
medium of the Press. This has happened especially since 
he became president of the evangelical " Social Congress." I 
place a far higher value, however, upon the rich and deep life 
which has flowed forth upon all his pupils from this great man 
and lofty character. To his pupils he has devoted himself 
heart and soul as a genuine teacher. He is the teacher of an 
entire generation of theologians and not merely of a school ; 
and all of them, not excepting his opponents, have enjoyed 
the influence of his rich and inspiring personality. Many owe 
to him the direction of their lives, and a wealth of inner 
treasures which have rendered them happy and impelled them 
to the service of our people. 

Side by side with Harnack stands to-day a long line of 
men of his own generation all of whom are more distinctively 
scholars pure and simple, and men of science. I mention only 
Wilhelm Herrmann, our best-known teacher of dogmatic 
theology ; and Adolf Jiilicher, learned and penetrating both as 
a patristic and New Testament scholar. But there is a 
younger generation growing up and now in the fulness of its 
power and activity which, to a degree beyond that of the 
names just cited, is taking an active and direct part in life on 
the lines of a renovated Christianity. The most significant and 
perhaps the most learned among them is Ernst Troltsch, who 
has not only turned systematic theology in a new direction but 
also has given a new account of the intellectual and religious 



730 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

history of the last four hundred years. This he has done in 
many single articles, and finally by his description of Protest- 
antism in the great compilation Kultur der Gegenwart. 

In the same rank with Troltsch stands Hermann Gunkel 
in G lessen. His labours in the History of Religion have con- 
tributed to the broadening of our outlook from the Old Testa- 
ment to the Old Orient. By means of a singularly delicate 
aesthetic instinct and a sensitive historical imagination, he has 
disclosed entirely new aspects for work on the Old and New 
Testaments. Strongly influenced by him, but more learned 
and active in practical life, is Wilhelm Bousset of Gottingen ; 
while Paul Wernle, in Basel, is perhaps most distinguished 
by his personal religious enthusiasm, combining in his books 
strength and simplicity in a way which is all his own. 
This younger generation is now comprised under the name 
" Religionsgeschichtliche Schule," inasmuch as all of them are 
bent upon extending historical and systematic study beyond 
the limits set by the earlier isolation of Christianity, and re- 
storing it to its proper place in the study of universal religion. 

But what unites us all is not so much our method as a 
strong and common determination to apply our studies to the 
service of life, to rescue Christianity from its state of isolation 
in regard to the modern world, and to put our fellow-country- 
men once more in possession of its best elements, its eternal 
content, which amid the vast technical and intellectual develop- 
ment of the last centuries it had almost lost. We are all 
agreed in an unconditional and unreserved recognition that the 
ultimate foundations of our modern theory of the universe are 
to be sought in Nature and History. We have seriously em- 
braced the conviction that the notion of miracle cannot be 
introduced any more into science nor into history. We have 
all admitted into our work the great scientific idea of evolution, 
and we confront the results of science with entire impartiality, 
accepting them all without prejudice. We have abandoned 
not only the old proofs of the existence of God but also the 
attempt to build any purely metaphysical foundation for 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 731 

religion, seeking the basis of our faith in God, with Kant and 
Schleiermacher, in quite other provinces of life. We believe 
that God meets us in the persons of those great men who are 
the active agents in evolution, the creators of ideals, and the 
prophets of the unknown Deity. The History of Religion has 
shown us that there are but few ultimate ideals open to the 
choice of mankind, when once the resolution has been made to 
find satisfaction in that Higher which speaks in human nature, 
and not to vegetate or live the life of a mere brute beast. The 
choice lies between a life of pessimism and agnosticism on the 
one hand, and, on the other, a life which answers the challenge 
of all suffering, of all mystery, even of all sin, by affirming the 
" Everlasting Yea." On that side stands Buddha, and on this 
two contrasts equally opposed to him first, Jesus, whose 
affirmative attitude towards life takes the form of a bold faith 
in a fatherly God, guiding the world towards its goal of good- 
ness and perfection, a faith which springs from an ideal of 
goodness and love embraced with enthusiasm amid the pain of 
the new birth ; and secondly, confronting Jesus, a foolhardy 
Egoism, which presumes to overcome the world, and is either 
the " will-to-enjoy " or the " will-to-have-power," as celebrated 
by Nietzsche. 

Such are the chief forms of salvation from the suffering, 
the confusion, and the guilt of life which men have found, or 
think they have found. To us, however, Jesus has given his 
life, radiant with goodness and with a love extending beyond 
all limited human morality ; so that for us nothing else 
remains possible than to live for this ideal and to believe in 
the God who has made himself known in Jesus. Hence it 
is our business to testify of this new-found life as well as we 
are able to do. No longer do we announce a doctrine of 
Christ, but Christ himself; himself, however, not as a dogma 
or a law but as a Leader and Saviour, even as he leads and 
saves ourselves. We are not preaching his doctrine in its 
historical details, but the innermost content of his spirit his 
seeking out of the rejected, the lost, and the oppressed, his 



732 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

grace and truth, his purity of heart, and the eagerness of self- 
surrender and of service. And all of this springs directly 
from a faith in God which does not count up and quibble, 
but feels the love of God both in rain and sunshine precisely 
because they fall impartially upon just and unjust. To be 
perfect in the faith that the secret of life is revealed as a 
Loving Will through the very medium of such apparent in- 
justice that is Christianity. And that Christianity we offer, 
no longer mingled, as in the old dogmas, with an antique 
picture of the world, but in intimate union with modern 
cosmology and therefore exempt from the objections which 
broke up the old systems. This, I say, we offer to our fellow- 
countrymen, not on authority, or as the only way but we 
speak what we have known. Whosoever will hear us and 
will receive this loftiest ideal and this deepest blessedness 
through the medium of our hands, him will we serve. 

To this renovated Christianity there stands opposed, in 
Germany, the second great world-religion Buddhism. It 
is through the influence of one of our greatest philosophers 
and the music of one of our greatest composers that the 
spread of Buddhism has been promoted in Germany. Arthur 
Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner have been its great 
preachers. And though Schopenhauer's success came later 
on he hardly lived to see it himself his influence never- 
theless was extremely strong towards the end of the century. 
His works were widely distributed, especially after they were 
able to be published in cheap editions in 1899. The influence 
of Richard Wagner would have been still more considerable 
if his Parsifal, of all his works the one most deeply steeped 
in Buddhism, had been allowed to be produced outside of 
Bayreuth. When in the year 1913 the production of this 
work will be possible in all theatres, it is probable and I 
would add it is to be hoped that it will be too late for it to 
exercise much influence upon the religious movements of our 
times. It is true that Wagner's religion is not so strongly 
Buddhistic as is Schopenhauer's theory. In Wagner's case 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 783 

deliverance from the sufferings of life is sought not entirely in 
a final submergence of personality in Nothing, nor entirely in 
those moments when the individual will vanishes into the 
oblivion of ecstasy, but rather in those other moments when 
man loses himself in the delights of artistic creation or of 
love. Tristan und Isolde is the pcean of these modes of 
deliverance. And, in the second place, Wagner has a much more 
active ethic, presenting the conflict with the world and the 
overcoming of the world as the primary ethical demand, 
notwithstanding that his regeneration of humanity is to be 
fulfilled by the instrumentality of vegetarianism. Yet his 
Parsifal became a knight and fought with the lance before 
he put his armour off and became a saviour of men. 
But the broad outlines of Wagner's musical gospel remain 
throughout Buddhistic, as he himself has explained it in plain 
prose in his important work on Religion and Art (1876). 
Although Wagner has now been dead for nearly thirty years, 
I have named him in this connection because it may be said 
that the first Buddhist community was formed in Bayreuth 
I might even call it a church. Every year thousands of 
persons congregate there to celebrate together the cultus of 
this religion. And it is a genuine cultus. Both the fashion- 
able crowds and the pure musicians are affected by it as by 
an act of religious consecration, at least in the solemn hours 
when the drama is drawing to a conclusion. And a com- 
munity of feeling prevails among all the foreign visitors, such 
as only the common participation in a deep experience can 
confer. Nor has the darker side of church development 
failed to display itself already in Bayreuth in the stiffening of 
the Master's spirit into an orthodoxy, the fostering of what is 
old, the making of heretics, the conversion of a great institu- 
tion to the money-power, and similar corruptions common to 
every religion which assumes an ecclesiastical character. 

Far less gifted with genius than either Schopenhauer or 
Wagner, but more modern than they for he lived to see 
and absorbed more of the scientific development than 



734 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Schopenhauer did stands Eduard von Hartmann, the third 
preacher of pessimism, next in order to the two great men 
aforesaid. Precisely because he is an average man with a 
great gift of easy exposition and fluent description, he seems 
to gain in significance for the present generation ; while eager 
pupils endeavour to extend his teaching in still more popular 
form. His works have appeared in many editions, since the 
Philosophy of tlie Unconscious, coinciding with the pessimistic 
tendencies prevalent from 1860 onwards, made such a marked 
success. A s the Philosophy of the Unconscious is so well known 
in England and America, I need not characterise Hartmann's 
teaching in detail. I must content myself with the reminder 
that Hartmann, in his theory of knowledge, opposed to Kant 
an entirely critical Realism, which, starting from an empirical 
basis, professes to prove the hyper-empirical world of the 
Absolute. The old proofs of the existence of God were all 
converted by Hartmann into modernised terms with the purpose 
of showing that the Absolute is existent, intelligent, and purpose- 
ful. After thus laying the basis of metaphysic in its essential 
object, Hartmann defines this object again, on the lines of 
a theory starting from empiricism, as the Unconscious. This 
conception, Hartmann contends, affords a better description 
of the nature of the Absolute than does the conception of 
Spirit, which Hegel has made current, because the latter does 
not include the Unconscious ; better also than Schopenhauer's 
" Will," which is thought of as in opposition both to Reason 
and Spirit. The Unconscious is Intelligence and Will, but 
not Consciousness. Consciousness is kindled only in the little 
eccentric world where man stands in the presence of an 
object ; the Unconscious is greater, an unmediated activity 
of creation which never errs, never weakens, never doubts, and 
never wavers after the manner of individual consciousness. 
The world, looked at from this point of view, is the best possible 
world, as it had been already named by Leibniz. But and 
here Hartmann makes the transition from metaphysic to 
religion, from a theory of the world to an estimate of the 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 735 

world's value when we question the universe as to whether 
it satisfies man's desire for happiness, the answer is in the 
negative. All the goods of the world, including the goods 
of human society, marriage, the family, friendship, and the 
rest, are analysed by Hartmann so as to yield the pessimistic 
conclusion that they are unable to confer upon man an entire 
and lasting satisfaction. And though man in his childhood 
deluded himself in regard to these things ; though in the 
Middle Ages, when he was grown to youth, he learnt to 
despise the goods of this world through the visionary attrac- 
tions of heaven ; and though in more recent times, when he 
was come of age, he again fell into the delusion of setting 
his hopes on an earthly future, yet now at last, at the end of 
the nineteenth century, his intelligence has become mature. 
He understands all these illusions, and is yearning for deliver- 
ance from the sufferings of existence. This deliverance can 
only be found if the world-process itself comes to an end. 
In regard to this, Hartmann, in his practical philosophy, 
advocates with much originality a way very different from 
that of Buddhism and Schopenhauer. What he inculcates 
is not asceticism, not the flight of the individual from the 
world, but rather the most active participation in the work of 
a developing culture in order to bring the entangling world- 
process to its end. Only through the deliverance of " God " 
himself, i.e. through the deliverance of the Unconscious from 
existence into which it entered by an inconceivable and un- 
intelligible act of his own nature, so far as it was will and 
impulse, only thus can the individual find his own deliverance. 
Along this path Hartmann professes to have made it possible 
to develop the ethic of humanity from the ground of a 
pessimistic and Buddhistic valuation of the world an ethic 
which presupposes the worth of life and of the individual, and 
is, indeed, as such nothing else than a diluted Christianity. 
This mode of thought has been brought forward by Hartmann 
himself as a philosophy of religion, and taught by him to his 
contemporary thinkers, in his Religion of the Spirit, as the 



736 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

peculiar nature both of Christianity and of Buddhism. 
Towards every form of Christian theology his attitude is one 
of decisive refusal most decisive, however, towards the old 
liberal and the modern liberal, as this has been described 
above. This he condemned as superficial optimism, and entirely 
repudiated its return to Jesus and to early Christianity. As 
early as 1870 he had written a work, under the pseudonym 
F. A. Miiller, against early Christianity and what he regarded 
as its ascetic, world-despising morality. It is a pity that the 
second edition of this book in 1907 is the last work of 
Hartmann, for a more superficial piece of dilettantism can 
hardly be conceived. It displays a narrow judgment which 
is sometimes irresistibly comic, as, for example, when he com- 
plains that he looks in vain to Jesus for the consecration of 
human labour, and demands of him that he ought at least 
once in a way to " have performed labour symbolically." 

A criticism of the metaphysic of Schopenhauer or Hart- 
mann is no more my present task than is a detailed exposition 
of the art of Wagner. I can only indicate that satisfaction is 
not to be had from the metaphysic of Hartmann, with its 
amorphous mixture of Schopenhauer and Hegel under the 
catchword of the Unconscious, which again is borrowed from 
Schelling ; nor can his Theory of Knowledge be made good 
against the doctrine of Kant. What does concern us here is 
the significance of this religion of Neo-Buddhism, and its 
prospects in Germany. One consideration is immediately 
suggested, namely, that both Schopenhauer and Hartmann are 
wholly precluded from being counted among the founders of 
religion. Both of them are distinctly sensible that their 
method is for those who would philosophise about religion, but 
not for those who would live religion and sow its seed. The 
feeling is justified ; and those persons in Europe who are 
anxious to escape from the world, who desire renunciation and 
absorption in the All-One, will always better consult their 
safety by taking the road which leads to the Monachism and 
Mysticism of the Catholic Church, where the theory is actually 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 737 

lived out, than by having recourse to a school of philosophy 
which merely talks about these things. All of Buddhism that 
the West can make use of is to be found in the Catholic 
Church. It offers, on a vaster scale, an inner support to great 
communities of persons who actually live according to the 
doctrine, and confers this support on a marvellous system of 
ritual which stirs the deepest emotions of mystical worship. 

And for this even Bayreuth cannot give any equivalent. 
Bayreuth provides a theatre, while Catholicism gives reality. 
In Bayreuth there is stage machinery and pasteboard, while 
in Catholicism the venerable night of old churches appeals 
to sentiment and invites to prostration. Were all this to count 
for nothing, it would still remain true that what goes on in 
Bayreuth is not actual life in a religion of sympathy, but a life 
of aesthetic appreciation ; and the people whose temperament 
draws them thither are a crowd of artists and not a band of 
apostles and martyrs. 

To hear Hartmann's doctrine preached in its thoroughgoing 
form as a way of salvation has something of a comic air. For 
it suffers from a strange contrast which perhaps may be best 
exhibited by means of the jest which is often heard in connec- 
tion with the use of alcohol. Whosoever would pre-occupy 
himself with culture, heart and soul and with all his powers, 
on the ground that this is the best mode of bringing both 
culture and the whole world to an end, bears a striking resem- 
blance to the drunkard who proposes to rid the world of 
alcohol by drinking as much of it as he can get. At least we 
may say that the doctrine which recommends to man a life of 
culture with the purpose, or implied purpose, of rendering him 
disgusted with culture, is obviously afflicted with something 
that is contrary to nature. It is more repellent and harder 
than Stoicism, which aims to render man independent of the 
joys of life even when he is surrounded by them. 

More perhaps is to be expected from influences working 
in the same direction which have recently passed over into 
Germany from English and American theosophy. We have, 

VOL. VII. No. 4. 47 



738 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

it is true, contributed to the movement men of only the 
second or third rank men like Rudolf Steiner and Franz 
Hartmann. But theosophical lodges already exist among us 
in considerable number, and Christian Science also heals among 
us many kinds of sickness. It appears to me, however, that the 
whole subject is a special pursuit of sickly people who in states 
of nervous excitement desire intercourse with their departed 
dear ones ; or of those to whom their precious health may 
have become the highest goal of religion. Finally, there are 
many in this country who, like their leader Annie Besant, 
have merely changed over from the pretended scientific world- 
view of materialism to the equally pretended science of 
spiritism from which they receive hardly a breath of religion, 
of reverence or communion with God. It is hardly to be 
expected that this form of modernised Buddhism, interwoven 
as it is with Christian elements, will gain much significance. 
It seems to me as though, on the whole, we had about done 
with this fin- dc-siecle religion, which marks a time of universal 
nervousness in the educated classes ; and as though the needs 
which made them restless were continually disappearing with 
the new century : the reason being simply that our attention, 
more than that of any earlier generation, has been applied to 
a reasonable care for the health of the people, public hygiene, 
and sport. Bodily health is after all the best antidote against 
all pessimism of sesthetic extraction. 

Far more important than this modern perversion of 
Buddhism appears to me the ever-growing revival of Nature- 
mysticism. The guides of this movement start from modern 
science ; but they refuse to ally themselves with materialism, 
and even a monistic view of the world, like that which Haeckel 
has so dogmatically advanced and some of them are Haeckel's 
pupils does not satisfy them either in regard to their aesthetic 
sense or their religious need. But monists they certainly are, 
and their writings are filled from end to end with polemic 
against Christian Theism and Deism. In a work on Monism 
(Verlag Diederichs, 1908) they have recently announced their 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 739 

alliance with the school of Eduard von Hartmann in opposi- 
tion to Christianity, with its belief in a supra-mundane God 
and a supra-mundane life. But religion they must have. And 
they regard themselves with pride as the bearers of a new 
religion, which shall unite the noblest elements of all mysticism 
with the results of modern science. At first science meant for 
them simply the science of nature ; but recently they devote 
themselves also to the history of religion, and endeavour, like 
the Theosophists, to discover mystical elements everywhere 
present in it, and to combine these in a new construction. 

There used to be in Friedrichshagen, on the shore of the 
Miiggelsee near Berlin, a circle of young writers tired of 
Naturalism in art (some of them had been its leaders in the daily 
press), who founded a community for the purpose of cultivating 
this new religion in the course of common walking - tours. 
Their intention was to cultivate the power of listening to the 
secrets of Nature, of feeling and reverencing the great All of 
life, which, surrounding us on every side, speaks to us in 
mysterious language through man and beast, through tree and 
flower, through wood and lake and rock. By these means 
they would behold the " New God," and conquer the " Future 
Land " of humanity, the " Third Realm," the " Realm of 
Fulfilment" -these expressions being all the titles which 
Heinrich and Julius Hart gave to their books. It fell to the 
lot of Bruno Wille to listen to the " Revelations of the Juniper 
Tree " and to write them down in a novel. He it was also 
(he is a pupil both of Haeckel and Fechner) who preached 
the gospel of the " Living All." The best known of them all 
is Bolsche, whom a lively fancy had endowed with a happy 
gift of making the latest results of natural science savoury and 
interesting to the general public. He is the most lovable of 
the group. His view of the world is most clearly expressed in 
his book The Secret of Nature, published in 1905 by Diederichs. 
It is a pantheism which rejoices in the world, combined with 
the ideal of the love of one's neighbour, which is taken either 
from Christianity and the general religious development of 



740 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

humanity, or else made to rest upon pantheism. This love 
proceeds from the comprehensive unity of all Being. The 
group in Friedrichshagen has broken up ; it did not possess 
the vitality needed to found a strong and living community. 
There was not a single artist among them to sing their thoughts 
to our people in classic form. Bruno Wille, however, is the 
most popular. The " free-thinkers," still remaining from the 
earlier Liberal movements, which, on the whole, lead a troubled 
life, have accepted him as their public lecturer; and he is 
permitted to announce his religion to that social democracy 
to which he belongs, apparently without much success. 
Moreover, he has recently become active as a travelling lecturer 
to the " League of Monists," notwithstanding that he is divided 
on almost every point from orthodox Haeckelism the pre- 
valent doctrine of the League. The teaching of the " League 
of Monists " is too superficial and out-of-date to inspire men 
of an artistic or of a pious temperament. Unfortunately, the 
hope cannot be entertained that the " League of Monists " will 
be guided by him and its other supporters from Nature- mystic 
on to deeper lines. There is not sufficient power of will to 
produce such a result. There was another thinker in the 
" League of Monists " from whom this might have been ex- 
pected I mean Pastor Kalthoff of Bremen, chosen by Haeckel 
as president of the League. Unfortunately he died too early, 
in 1907, when fifty-six years old. In 1902 appeared his book 
The Problem of Christ, in which he endeavoured to prove, in 
a dilettante fashion and with absolutely insufficient means, that 
Jesus was only the imagined ideal of a revolutionary class of 
slaves in Jewish-Hellenistic Rome. When the book appeared 
one could only vaguely guess that the whole of this entirely 
negative criticism, combined with its vigorous attack upon 
Harnack, had any place in the service of a comprehensive 
programme of religion. 

But the sermons of Kalthoff, which soon began to appear, 
showed that he was in reality a man of religious fire and force, 
perhaps more an orator than a poet, little capable of producing 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 741 

original work but rather disposed to fuse together into a 
formless mass all the tendencies of modern life Nature-mystic, 
Nietzsche, and the theories of social democracy. But, in any 
case, Kalthoff was a force, which might have promised a note- 
worthy development of the "League of Monists," while it 
now seems condemned to orthodox Haeckelism, unless the 
" Keplerbund," unfortunately founded at an inopportune 
moment by Christian orthodox influences, will give the move- 
ment new life. This "Keplerbund" conducts its apologetic in 
the old style of petty disputes about incorrect pictures of embryos 
and details of Darwinism, and hopes by these means to save 
Christianity. Little or no influence, so far, need be ascribed to 
the attempts of which the object is to stir up " Neuromantics " 
and to revive the old mysticism. Eugen Diederichs, the 
energetic publisher of Jena, has taken a deep interest in the 
matter. It is he who has given us Germans a fine edition of 
Maeterlinck and of the old German mystical writers. He has 
also made Master Ekkhart, the German Theology, Angelus 
Silesius, as well as the ancient mystics, Plato and Plotinus, once 
more accessible to educated Germans. But Maeterlinck con- 
tinues to be little understood in Germany, except in so far as his 
book on The Life of Bees and his essay on The Intelligence 
of Flowers falls into line with our Nature-mystic. The old 
mysticism seems to find adherents only among quiet little 
souls. Our Neuromantics, like Stephan George and Hugo 
von Hoffmannstal, are not strong men, but tender souls 
entirely sunk in fin-de-siede decadence. They have not ad- 
vanced beyond Maeterlinck's first period, and perhaps they 
never will. All these shadows and ghosts will not succeed 
in awakening a religion which overflows with the clear 
waters of modern life. They are, however, of high signifi- 
cance for the deepening of our inner life, and one of them, 
perhaps, signifies something more. A genuine and thorough 
poet a gift not bestowed upon the group in Friedrichshagen 
has arisen in the person of the young Austrian, Reiner Maria 
Rilke. No other writer in our language has shown the power he 



742 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

possesses of singing and telling forth the presence of the Divine 
in Nature, especially in the quiet and unobtrusive life of small 
things ; no other has so fully expressed the emotion of man 
as he mingles his being with the All and feels the wind of God 
breathing through him. Perhaps he has learnt from the 
young Maeterlinck the note of fatigue which belongs especially 
to his early poems. It may be simply the mark of youth not 
yet understanding itself, and something yet stronger is to be 
expected from Rilke. He is, moreover, no leader; for like 
all these mystics, he lacks an ideal of life. 

Of course, attempts have not been wanting to make good 
the old ideals in connection with these new religions. I have 
in mind especially the efforts of Ellen Key to combine the 
individualistic ideal and Nietzsche's teaching with Nature- 
mysticism into a pantheistic picture of religion. This attempt, 
moreover, has engaged many enthusiastic young men in 
Germany, and more especially many young women. What is 
tempting and captivating about Ellen Key's books is precisely 
the union of these two elements, though in reality they are 
absolutely incapable of being united. For the brutalities l of 
even the loftiest Individualism would be quite intolerable to 
these people, had they not the necessary counterweight in the 
tenderness and inwardness of communion with Nature. The 
only logical ethic which can be derived from pantheism is an 
ethic of love or of sympathy. 

Hence the attempt to found Christianity on the new 
mystical feeling for Nature is more intelligible. The earlier 
theologian, Johannes Mliller, undertook the task of " German- 
ising " and " modernising '* the Sermon on the Mount in this 
sense. When Jesus speaks of " our Father in Heaven " he 
means the everlasting, vital glow of the All, supporting and 
permeating us, under whose influence we thrill with a 
mysterious impulse which we control for creative ends, and 
feel pressing upon us in all events as a quickening influence 

1 This warm-hearted woman herself goes so far as to maintain that the 
offender ought not to be pardoned but " extinguished." 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 743 

the Fountain-head of our being and the Healing Power of 
life. From this experience there arises a morality of over- 
flowing life. Love is not a moral relation which man can call 
into being by means of a good will, but an original faculty ; 
not an affinity which is awaked by attractive or sympathetic 
persons, but the self-assertion of the soul, the abounding inner 
life which pours out its ripened fulness because it cannot hold 
back the riches of its hidden wealth. Like the streaming of 
the sunshine and the quivering movement of fiery heat, this 
love encompasses men and permeates them with vigour and 
the joy of life. 

In these few sentences of M tiller's we trace his own peculiar 
genius, and perceive that the preacher is not Jesus but a 
modern man, who has learnt the best that he has to give 
mainly from Nietzsche, especially from Nietzsche's Zarathustra ; 
and this is the ideal of joy, and a virtue which pours forth in 
perpetual outflow. Indeed, it is not individualism so much as 
egoism which here assumes the name of the Sermon on the 
Mount, the self-expression of a soul irradiated by the glow of 
pantheistic experience. M tiller's followers in Germany are 
numbered by thousands ; hundreds of them gather every year 
at a castle on the Main, which has been assigned him by one 
of his admirers for the purpose. Here they fortify themselves 
by a common life and develop in intercourse with the master. 
He must be a man of force and great warmth of heart, for he 
attaches quite old-fashioned Christians to himself, though he 
himself has now gone over from orthodoxy to pantheistic 
nature- mystic. His Blatter zur Pflege personLichen Lebem 
answer the same requirements of the modern man as do the 
essays of Ellen Key. They meet the individualistic aspirations 
of youth as well as its cravings for religion. What is wanting 
is unity and a clear ideal for actual life. 

We have now placed in review the chief directions in which 
modern religion is moving in Germany. What will come out 
of them ? Will any one of these tendencies be victorious ? 
Will an eclecticism develop out of them all ? Shall we see a 



744 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

return to abandoned forms of Christianity, as in the time 
of the old Romanticism at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century ? Who can venture to predict in such a matter ! 

But I must not conclude with mere historical information. 
Nay, rather, I have yet to indicate briefly the goal which 
hovers before me as offering a way out of the strife and con- 
fusion of the present. From Nature-mystic life can derive 
no clear ideal ; while the doctrine of the spirituality of Nature 
is generally lacking in religion. This doctrine is not an appre- 
ciation of the world, but an attempt to explain the world. 
A definite goal is provided, first, by aesthetic individualism in 
its coarser or its finer sense ; secondly, by Buddhism with its 
renunciation of life ; and thirdly, by Christian love, the 
highest flower of the altruistic dispositions of men. Hence- 
forth humanity has to choose between these ideals. If Chris- 
tianity is to remain victorious it must advance along the lines 
which have been sketched above. It may not forego its 
character as a New Birth, as pantheism demands ; but it must 
attach itself to the new feeling for Nature and to the new 
knowledge of Nature, after first cutting itself free from every 
antiquated picture of the world and from every antiquated 
dogma. Jesus himself in a unique manner lived in Nature 
and from Nature. It was from Nature that the voice of his 
Heavenly Father spoke to him in the bending and waving 
corn, in the varied clothing of flowers and the singing of birds. 
But he also maintained an inviolable reverence for God, 
as the blessed Power which spreads unexhausted over Nature, 
and whose loving will has to be served by Nature as well as by 
History, so that the world may become at last a Kingdom of 
God. This God comes to meet the man who seeks a goal for 
life, the God of the Ideal who reigns above that highest reach 
of our human nature, whereby we are distinguished from all 
beings known to us our moral life. On the other hand, 
Theology has something to learn from reformed Buddhism. 
Liberalism and Modern Theology were only too ready to 
be satisfied with the world as it is. These have often lacked 



RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GERMANY TO-DAY 745 

the element of sternness so distinctly expressed by the bitter 
condemnation of the world in early Christianity. Not only 
a serious attention paid to the suffering in the world, but 
a firm determination to introduce the Ideal into life, should 
lead us into deeper earnestness. In this regard Modern 
Theology is often defective. The Old Theology attached 
itself almost without condition to a State which was not 
truly Christian, and to every social prejudice which professed 
to be Christian, so long as it wore the outward garment of 
the Church. Modern theology, also, has often suffered itself 
to be driven along the false path of renouncing the practical 
attempt to transform the world to its ideal pattern in 
our day influenced, no doubt, by the fate of Friedrich 
Naumann. Naumann began a brilliant career as a prophet 
of morality and religion, his devotional work The Help of 
God being, perhaps, the noblest product of modern piety. 
But, despairing of a thorough-going introduction of the 
Christian Ideal into human life, he threw in his lot with those 
politicians who look upon power and economical welfare as 
the central concern of the life of nations. This has caused 
the courage of many to fail. The resolve to achieve a new 
world, a Kingdom of God, is far too weak among us. I mean 
the aspiration after a world ruled by Truth, Love, and Purity, 
in which all that is shameful in the political and social life of 
the present day shall be impossible ; a world in which war and 
retaliation, duelling and revenge, prostitution and the exploita- 
tion of the unfortunate, and all that opposes the Will of a God 
of Love, shall be no more. Only when this lofty ideal of 
Christianity shall be again preached in all seriousness, when 
God shall be again vitally felt as ever present and speaking to 
us only when Christianity thus rejuvenated, in earnest and 
enthusiastic, again becomes powerful in our midst, will our 
generation appear to be inwardly not unworthy of the splendid 
age in which it outwardly lives. 

H. WEINEL. 

JENA. 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 
A REPLY TO MR ROBERTS. 

I. 
G. K. CHESTERTON. 

BEFORE remarking on the Rev. Mr Roberts's article called 
"Jesus or Christ?" it is only fair for me to say that the title 
affects me personally as would some such title as " Napoleon 
or Bonaparte ? " I can comprehend a nuance of difference 
between the terms ; that one would use the surname in one 
connection, the imperial name in another. But I could not 
comprehend a person trying to prove that Napoleon was clever 
while Bonaparte was stupid, or that Bonaparte was a coward 
while Napoleon was very brave. If there were no life of 
General Bonaparte there would (to my narrow and unphilo- 
sophic mind) be no legend of Napoleon ; his public life may 
have been more glorious than his private, but it is essential 
to my sentimental interest that they should both have happened 
to the same man. In the same way the achievements of 
Christ as the founder of a Church and the chief deity of a 
civilisation may be more gigantic and inspiring than His 
activities in Galilee or Jerusalem. But if the two persons are 
not one person I lose my existing interest in both of them ; 
one of them is an obscure Rabbi like Hillel, and the other is 
a myth like Apollo. 

But I must make one preliminary explanation, in case I 
have not understood Mr Roberts's main design. If Mr Roberts 



746 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 747 

merely means this : that the Jesus of the Gospels is not enough 
for all human purposes ; that we need more codification and 
science in our morals than so poetic a vision can give to us, 
I agree with him at once. I do not know what deduction he 
draws ; the deduction I draw is that Jesus left on earth not 
only four lives of Himself, but also a Church and a Catholic 
tradition. If Jesus means the Gospels and Christ means the 
Church, and if Mr Roberts chooses to put it in the form that 
we need Christ in addition to Jesus, I have no quarrel with 
him there. But if he means (as I think he certainly does 
mean) that the Jesus in the Gospels is definitely unreliable 
and undivine, that He can be convicted of error, that He has 
been outgrown, then I have a very large and hearty quarrel 
with Mr Roberts ; and it is simply a quarrel about the facts. 

I will follow his example and divest myself of any old- 
world disguises of reverence ; and I will speak as he does of 
the actual Jesus as He appears in the New Testament ; not 
as He appears to a believer, but as He appears to anybody ; 
as He appeared to me when I was an agnostic ; as He 
appeared and still appears to pagans when they first read 
about Him. If, therefore, in this article I speak of Him 
with something that even sounds like levity, let it be under- 
stood that I am speaking for the sake of argument of a 
hypothetical human Jesus in the Syrian documents, and not 
of that divine personality in whom I believe. 

Now, the thing that strikes me most about Mr Roberts is 
that he is wrong on the facts. He is especially wrong on the 
primary fact of what sort of person the Jesus of the Gospels 
appears to be. The whole of Mr Roberts's contention is 
ultimately this : that when we look, so to speak, through the 
four windows of the Evangelists at this mysterious figure, we 
see there a recognisable Jew of the first century, with the 
traceable limitations of such a man. Now, this is exactly what 
we do not see. If we must put the thing profanely and 
without sympathy, what we see is this : an extraordinary being, 
who would certainly have seemed as mad in one century as 



748 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

another, who makes a vague and vast claim to divinity, who 
constantly contradicts himself, who imposes impossible com- 
mands, who where he seems wrong to us would certainly have 
seemed quite as wrong to anybody else, who where he seems 
specially right to us is often in tune with matters not ancient 
but modern, such, for instance, as the adoration of children. 
For some of his utterances men might fairly call him a maniac ; 
for others, men long centuries afterwards might justly call 
him a prophet. But what nobody can possibly call him is 
Galilean of the time of Tiberius. That was not how he 
appeared to his own family, who tried to lock him up as a 
lunatic. That is not how he appeared to his own nation, who 
lynched him, still shuddering at his earth-shaking blasphemies. 
The impression produced on sceptics, ancient and modern, is 
not that of limits, but rather of a dangerous absence of limits ; 
a certain shapelessness and mystery of which one cannot say 
how far it will go. Those of his contemporaries who said that 
he was possessed by devils seem to me much better critics 
of biography than Mr Roberts. 

I deny, therefore, Mr Roberts's facts ; but it would hardly 
be courteous to leave such a statement as mere assertion, 
therefore I will briefly give my proofs. There are at least 
three practical and final reasons why the Gospels cannot be 
used for this purpose of catching Jesus out in ignorances or 
mistakes. The first is the scope and style of the Gospels. 
There is here a very queer confusion of thought which Mr 
Roberts has not foreseen or avoided. He says, very truly, 
that the materials are meagre, or in other words that the New 
Testament is a very little book. He then goes on to say, as if 
it were part of the same argument, that we can see in this book 
the small contemporary prejudices of the Jew. But if these 
two things are true they must be true in spite of each other. 
So far as they go they destroy each other : the less there is 
about Jesus the less it is possible to belittle Him. The 
limitation of the book prevents the limitation of the hero. It 
would be much harder to find out a man's limitations from a 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 749 

short post-card than from a long letter. If a man talks for fifteen 
minutes you may possibly find that he is a fool ; if he talks for 
two hours it is barely possible that you may learn that he is a 
bore. But if he only says, " A fine morning ! " he may be 
Shakespeare or Socrates for all you know. But Mr Roberts 
actually quotes, in order to limit Jesus, that biographical 
brevity which in fact makes it impossible to limit Jesus. For 
instance, the mere fact of the size and plain purpose of the 
Gospels makes nonsense of the whole of Mr Roberts's laments 
about things being absent from them. One might as well 
complain of some subjects being left out of a telegram or 
a triolet. Mr Roberts's complaint that Jesus does not 
mention debtors and creditors or the slave-system, is utterly 
absurd when taken in connection with the nature of the books. 
He might as well object that the Lord's Prayer is entirely 
silent on the subject of a Second Chamber, the duty of doctors 
in time of plague, the art of Botticelli, the advisability of 
reading novels, and the use of tobacco. The Lord's Prayer is, 
in shape and purpose, a short prayer. The Gospel of St Luke 
is, in shape and purpose, a short account of such sayings and 
doings of Jesus as a particular person happened to remember. 
As I have already said, I agree that this leaves the Gospel 
Jesus too shadowy to be all-sufficient ; that is the argument 
for a Church. But the same brevity and obscurity which 
make it a little difficult to define His doctrines make it mere 
impudent nonsense to talk of His limitations. 

But Mr Roberts does something worse than complain of 
the omissions of Jesus ; he supplies them. It is borne in upon 
me that he has pursued a course not uncommon among 
cultivated modern persons a course which I pursued myself 
for many years of my life ; I mean that he has read all the 
books about the New Testament and forgotten to read the 
book itself. His memories of it, at any rate, are singularly 
hazy and exaggerative. Before I leave this first objection, 
that the limit of space limits the limitation of Jesus, let me 
give one truly extraordinary example. Let me show how 



750 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

huge and systematic are the unconscious fictions built up in 
Mr Roberts's brain ; and let me show (what is more to the 
point) how utterly and obviously unfitted are the curt texts of 
the Evangelists to be the basis of such structures. 

Speaking still of Jesus, Mr Roberts writes as follows : 
" His teaching on divorce recognises the husband's right to 
accuse, judge, condemn, and dismiss the wife ; while the wife, 
having no such rights as against her husband or even over her 
own children, is left the helpless victim of the husband's 
caprice. There is no recognition of adultery on the part of the 
husband as a ground for divorce which the wife might urge, 
while the right of the husband to decide these matters himself 
without reference to any constituted law courts strikes the 
modern mind as callous and iniquitous to the last degree. 
The teaching is governed throughout by an admission of the 
iniquitous principle of sex-inferiority as against woman, and let 
it be remembered this principle has inflicted infinite suffering 
on half the human race." 

Anyone would imagine from this that Jesus Christ read 
out an Act of Parliament, with twenty-five clauses and 
fifteen schedules. I was puzzled by this, because, as far as I 
could remember, He only answered a casual question in the 
street. I do not profess to be any more verbally irreproachable 
than Mr Roberts in my memories of Scripture ; still, I could 
not recall anything in the Gospels about any of these things, 
about the custody of the children, about not having any law 
courts, or about the iniquitous principle of sex-inferiority. But 
in a note at the bottom of the page referring to the above 
paragraph, Mr Roberts has written the following undecorated 
but highly misleading statement: "Matt, c. xix., vv. 3-9; 
Mark, c. x., vv. 11-12; Luke, c. xv., v. 18." 

This made the matter simpler; so I looked up Matt, c., 
etc., and found nothing even resembling the above immense 
system for getting rid of wives. I found a hasty and some- 
what disdainful statement in answer to a few hecklers ; the 
statement was entirely concerned with telling people that 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 751 

marriage was a final and sacred state, and that therefore, except 
on one parenthetical supposition, men ought to cleave to their 
wives. There was nothing about the husband having the 
children or anybody having the children ; there were no law 
courts or absence of law courts or remote mention of law 
courts ; there was nothing whatever about anybody being 
inferior to anybody. This is the whole text of Matthew : 

" The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and 
saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his 
wife for every cause ? And he answered and said unto them, 
Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning 
made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a 
man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife : and 
they twain shall be one flesh ? W herefore they are no more 
twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, 
let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did 
Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and 
to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of 
the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your 
wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say 
unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for 
fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery : and 
whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery." 

I quote verbatim lest I should seem unfair if I summarised. 
But would any human being think me unfair if I summarised 
the above thus ? A man asked Jesus if wives should be divorced. 
Jesus replied, No ; a man should leave everything for his wife 
and cleave to her, unless she practically left him. The custom 
of divorcing wives was a bad custom only permitted in a brutal 
society. The normal ideal was absolute fidelity. If it does 
not mean that, I can offer no conjecture as to what it means. 
The exact words of Mark are as follows : 

"And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it 
lawful for a man to put away his wife ? tempting him. And 
he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command 
you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of 



752 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and 
said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you 
this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made 
them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his 
father and mother, and cleave to his wife ; and they twain shall 
be one flesh : so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put 
asunder. And in the house his disciples asked him again of 
the same matter. And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall 
put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery 
against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and 
be married to another, she committeth adultery." 

I request any rational person to look at the last sentence 
and ask himself what has become of Mr Roberts's Oriental 
vision of the shuddering, inferior woman, and the husband 
sitting like a sultan on a cushion to judge her. The very 
phrase " put away " which is the basis of the whole business is 
here assumed in both sexes and condemned in both. In Mark 
the sexes are told to cleave to each other. In Matthew only 
the man is told to cleave to the woman ; and in Matthew an 
exception is mentioned. That is all. Henceforth I shall make 
a point of looking out the references given in rationalist articles. 

The third reference is to Luke xv., verse 18. I have 
looked this out also, and it runs, " 1 will arise and go to my 
father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against 
heaven and before thee." Here I confess my brain gives out : 
I can no more. I cannot conceive what this text has to do 
with it, unless the iniquitous principle of sex-inferiority pre- 
vented the Prodigal Son from arising and going to his mother. 

I have thought it worth while to dwell on this excellent 
specimen of the Higher Criticism, because I think it is time 
that this sort of thing should stop. But I mentioned it 
originally not so much to show the unreasonableness of Mr 
Roberts's deduction as to show the unreasonableness of mak- 
ing any detailed deduction. The short, sword-like sentences 
used by Jesus Christ in combat are not elaborate enough for 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 753 

this purpose. Here, for instance, He struck unmistakably 
one sentiment so that it rang that marriage is sacred and 
divorce bad ; as for the remote inferences, Mr Roberts's or 
anyone else's, one would not hang a dog on them. In short, 
the sharp incidental style of Jesus is against Mr Roberts in 
his amiable attempt to find limits. The sayings, whether 
convincing or not, are not of the literary type which reveal a 
man's mental boundaries. They are mostly abrupt, generally 
symbolic, and often ironical. If we are to find a man's mental 
limitations we must have a long sample of his connected 
thought ; thus I do not think it difficult, after reading his 
article, to find the limitations of Mr Roberts. But it is 
impossible with utterances that are partly epigrams, partly 
oracles, and often something like songs. The thing to say 
about Jesus if you do not like Him is that He was a megalo- 
maniac like Nero or a deliberate mystagogue like Cagliostro. 
But whether or no He was small, it is plain that the Gospels 
are too small for Him. Whether or no He is large, He is too 
large for the stage. 

There is a second more emphatic reason for refusing to find 
these limitations in the Gospel figure. It is the moral nature 
of most of the sayings, which are intrinsically defiant, vision- 
ary, and even paradoxical. Here Mr Roberts has been horribly 
unfortunate. The examples he gives prove exactly the 
opposite of what he is trying to prove. For instance, he 
quotes the old "Take no thought for the morrow." It is 
indeed a very extraordinary utterance; but for that very 
reason it is not the ordinary utterance of a first-century Jew. 
Does Mr Roberts believe that it was ever a customary thing 
for a Jew to take no thought for the morrow? Does he 
suppose that Zebedee never mended his nets, that Nicodemus 
never counted his money, that people in Palestine did not 
sow or reap ? Surely it is as plain as a pike-staff that such a 
saying would have been a paradox if uttered in any age or 
country; as much a paradox to Jews under Tiberius as to 
Englishmen under Edward VII. As to its true meaning, 
VOL. VII. No. 4. 48 



754 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

I am not discussing that now. It may have been a special 
counsel to certain illuminati ; it may have been a mystical 
joke ; it may have been a perfection we shall one day 
reach ; it may have been irony ; it may have been insanity. 
All that we agree to leave open. But whatever it was, it was 
not a current convention. So far from showing Jesus surren- 
dering to the limits of his age, it shows Jesus apparently 
breaking out of the limits of all ages. It shows Him 
gigantic, in an incredible attitude, defying the limits of 
human life. 

Mr Roberts mixes up these two opposite ideas for several 
pages. Sometimes he reproaches Jesus with saying what 
everybody thought and sometimes what nobody could ever 
think. But surely every paradox of Jesus obliterates a limi- 
tation of Jesus. Take this, for instance : " On non-resistance 
and oath-taking the rule attributed to Jesus is absolute. Yet, 
as a whole, Christendom has openly violated it throughout 
its history. His most distinguished followers, popes and 
bishops, have waged wars and consecrated battleships ; and 
the existence of Christian armies proves that Jesus has been 
unable to get His own followers to obey His rule." The 
command about the other cheek is highly startling ; but it 
would certainly have startled people in the Roman Empire as 
much as ourselves, if not more. I can see how it might be 
maintained that this phrase of Jesus proves His unlimited 
extravagance, but I cannot see how it proves His Syrian 
limitations. Were the Maccabees or the Zelots non-resisters ? 
Did the Romans turn the other cheek ? Here also I am dis- 
cussing not the theory, but the facts. Christ's command about 
giving the coat as well as the cloak was, very possibly, a 
humorous suggestion of embarrassing the enemy. "If a 
man knocks your hat off, offer him your umbrella ; and it is 
he who will look the fool." But my interpretations are not 
in question, but Mr Roberts's ; and by no conceivable means 
can Mr Roberts make this paradox a current or local prejudice. 
That " popes and bishops have waged wars and consecrated 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 755 

battleships " is a very fortunate fact for Mr Roberts and for 
other Western Europeans. For certainly, if the Pope had 
not launched a fleet and hurled back the Turks at Lepanto, 
Mr Roberts and the rest of us would be living under a Turkish 
civilisation, in which he might find the view of woman even 
less satisfactory than that expressed (so obscurely) in the 
parable of the Prodigal Son. But if human conventions have 
contradicted Jesus on this matter, it may prove that Jesus 
was wrong, but it can hardly prove that He was conventional. 
So it is with the matter of marriage on which I have already 
touched. The substance of the speech of Jesus is simply that 
divorce is wrong because sacramental marriage is right. I 
could understand a person calling this quixotic or idealistic or 
too cruel a strain on human nature. But to say that Jesus 
got it from the Jews or the Roman Empire is absurd. We 
come back to the same fact : if Jesus is impossible, it is because 
He is individual and idealist, not because He was like His 
land or age. If He is outside practical politics, it is not 
because He is limited to his age, but because He is quite 
astonishingly in advance of ours. 

Thirdly, there is one element in the thoughts of Jesus which 
again may make a man conclude that they are worthless, but 
which cannot possibly make him conclude that they are limited. 
I mean the element of apparent contradiction. If I meet a 
man who says he is an atheist, I may consider him a limited 
man ; I generally do. If ten minutes afterwards I overhear 
him praying passionately to God, I may conclude that he is 
mad, or a humorist, or has some singular synthesis. But 
exactly the thing I cannot say is that I know his limits. Now, 
Jesus told men to turn the other cheek ; He also told them 
to buy swords to fight people ; He also set them a healthy 
example by thrashing the money-changers in the open Temple. 
This may be madness, but it is not limitation. Jesus said, 
" He that is not for us is^against us." He also said, " He that 
is not against us is for us." This may be illogicality, but it is 
not limitation. 



756 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Lastly, one other argument of Mr Roberts is put in this 
simple form : " If Jesus was God He knew that the people's 
belief in diabolic obsession was an error." He does not seem 
to see that this rather transfers the discussion from the question 
of whether Jesus was God to the question of whether Mr 
Roberts is God a question into which I have far too much 
delicacy to enter. But I think a man might be a little more 
modest than to begin two or three sentences with, " If he was 
God he knew that -" and then add all his own private opinions 
or all the most ephemeral prejudices of his season and his set. 
How, may I ask, does Mr Roberts know exactly what God 
thinks about diabolic possession ? To understand men or the 
most ordinary life is mystery enough for most of us ; and here 
is an enlightened gentleman who not only knows about God, 
but knows God's private opinion upon the mystery of evil. 
One would think that the meditations of the Omniscient upon 
the subject of devils might reasonably be left undisturbed. 
But since the indiscretion has already been committed, and 
Mr Roberts is in possession of the Divine view of the relations 
between moral evil and animal torture, I suggest that he 
should tell us at once what they are, instead of taking, with 
this mistaken shyness, the indirect method of attacking Jesus 
of Nazareth. Who hath laid the measure thereof, declare 
since thou knowest ? or, who hath stretched the line upon 
it ? Have the gates of death been open to thee, or hast thou 
seen the doors of the shadow of death ? What is pain ? What 
are devils ? What is the relation between the body and the 
soul, between the soul and the other souls outside it ? Do 
Mr Roberts and I know so much about any of these things 
that we should say that there is no such thing as diabolic 
possession ? Is there any particular logic in denying that the 
Son of God might cast our devils out, merely because most 
modern doctors are obliged to leave them in ? But Mr 
Roberts is hardly enough of a Catholic to be an agnostic ; 
and it may be that this sort of intellectual humility appears 
to him merely hazy and remote. I will appeal to him upon 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 757 

a side on which I am sure he is sensitive. I will point out to 
him that he is decidedly behind the times. He is by no means 
modern. Psychological science in our time has come uncom- 
fortably near to a belief in the casting out of devils. Dual 
personality is surely something uncommonly like diabolic 
possession ; it seems only to resolve itself into a delicate 
problem of which person should be thrown out. Moreover 
(and this is yet more important), if you had asked any of the 
manly old freethinkers, Tom Paine or Diderot, to believe 
in dual personality, they would have told you that they would 
just as soon, while they were about it, believe in diabolical 
possession. In the very issue of the HIBBERT JOURNAL in 
which Mr Roberts takes it for granted that God Almighty is 
an early Victorian rationalist, there are no less than three 
articles dealing with psychical marvels which all the early 
Victorian rationalists would have classed with the Cock- Lane 
ghost. And America is already roaring with a new religion 
which maintains not only that this or that disease might be 
a devil, but that all disease is one vast devil a universal 
diabolic possession. Surely Mr Roberts might be induced 
to wait a little while before he deprives his Christ of the 
only body and the only biography which that being ever 
possessed. 

In conclusion, it is my business, I suppose, to put very 
briefly my sentiment on the whole subject. I will put it thus. 
If I take it for granted (as most modern people do) that Jesus 
of Nazareth was one of the ordinary teachers of men, then I 
find Him splendid and suggestive indeed, but full of riddles 
and outrageous demands, by no means so workable and every- 
day an adviser as many heathens and many Jesuits. But if 
I put myself hypothetically into the other attitude, the case 
becomes curiously arresting and even thrilling. If I say, 
" Suppose the Divine did really walk and talk upon the earth, 
what should we be likely to think of it ? " then the foundations 
of my mind are moved. So far as I can form any conjecture, 
I think we should see in such a being exactly the perplexities 



758 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that we see in the central figure of the Gospels : I think 
he would seem to us extreme and violent ; because he 
would see some further development in virtue which would 
be for us untried. I think he would seem to us to contra- 
dict himself; because looking down on life like a map he 
would see a connection between things which to us are 
disconnected. I think, however, that he would always 
ring true to our own sense of right, but ring (so to speak) 
too loud and too clear. He would be too good, but never 
too bad for us : " Be ye perfect." I think there would be, 
in the nature of things, some tragic collision between him 
and the humanity he had created, culminating in something 
that would be at once a crime and an expiation. I think he 
would be blamed as a hard prophet for dragging down the 
haughty, and blamed also as a weak sentimentalist for loving 
the things that cling in corners, children or beggars. I think, 
in short, that he would give us a sensation that he was turning 
all our standards upside down, and yet also a sensation that he 
had undeniably put them the right way up. So, if I had been 
a Greek sage or an Arab poet before Christ, I should have 
figured to myself, in a dream, what would actually happen if 
this earth bore secretly somewhere the father of gods and 
men. In the abstract, it may be that it is still only a dream. 
Between those who think it a dream and those who do not, is 
to be waged the great war of our future in which all these 
frivolities will be forgotten. But among those who call it a 
dream I have not met many who call it a small dream ; and 
very few indeed who in reading its tremendous record have 
been chiefly struck by its limitations. 

G. K. CHESTERTON. 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 759 

II. 
JAMES HOPE MOULTON, M.A., D.Litt, 

Greenwood Professor of Hellenistic Greek and Indo-European Philology, 
University of Manchester. 

A MOMENTOUS question is being asked with great insistence in 
the thinking world to-day. In venturing a few general con- 
siderations towards an answer I shall take as my text Mr 
Roberts 's paper in the January number of this Journal. It 
would be a mistake to treat too seriously the points there 
hazarded against the Jesus of the Gospels. Betraying as they do 
indifference to facts within the reach of everyone, it will suffice 
to mention two or three samples, as fairly typical of much that 
we hear nowadays in sundry quarters. In the whole of my 
discussion, let me say at the outset I claim to be writing as a 
Liberal by temperament and conviction, owning no external 
authority whatever which might dictate to conscience in the 
quest for truth. 

Let us note first two blunders from which Mr Roberts 
would have been saved by a mere glance at the Revised Version. 
We read (p. 364), " Provident regard for the future is utterly 
condemned. ' Take no thought for the morrow ' is an absolute 
injunction." Jesus never said anything of the kind. Even 
King James's translators never imagined that He was dis- 
couraging thrift: it is only the change of meaning in the 
English phrase during three centuries which suggests any such 
idea. I am not " worrying about the morrow " when I insure 
my life ; I am only " taking thought for things honourable in 
the sight of all men." Another example may be seen in the 
capital Mr Roberts makes out of the assumption that Jesus 
promised a reward to be bestowed openly upon the charitable 
from the "Father which seeth in secret." Here again the 
ordinary reader of the Revised Version knows that the crucial 
word is not in the text ; it flagrantly defies the whole context. 1 

1 How early this perverse notion invaded the text is seen by its presence 
in the Lewis Syriac. But it proves nothing but a well-known tendency of 
human nature. 



760 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

These two instances will suffice to show that Mr Roberts 
seeks to reverse the judgment of the ages without taking the 
precaution against mistakes of fact. But something more may 
fairly be demanded of him than that he should read the Gospels 
in a good text and a modern version. It is not much to ask 
that he should consult some modern commentaries to see what 
the labours of biblical scholars have achieved towards the re- 
covery of the original words of Jesus. That he has not thought 
this worth while may be illustrated from his dicta upon the 
teaching of Jesus concerning divorce. Mr Roberts expressly 
cites Mark x. 12, and then says : " Throughout biblical times 
the right of the wife to sue for divorce was not recognised." 
Professor Burkitt's brilliant discussion of this passage has shown 
its genuineness, and its appropriateness to the case of Herodias. 
The verse is accordingly not inconsistent with Mr Roberts's 
assertion. But it is another matter to declare that Jesus 
countenanced any distinction between the sexes in the matter 
of divorce. It is only " Matthew " who inserts the limitation 
which penalises the unchaste woman and leaves the unchaste 
man (v. 32, xix. 9). Our oldest Gospel knows nothing of it, 
and its absence from Luke shows that it was equally unknown 
to the lost source " Q" (see Harnack's Sayings of Jesus, p. 58). 
Matthew's insertion of the limitation is a fair theme for 
discussion. I am only concerned to express the belief, gener- 
ally held by students of the Synoptic question, that Jesus 
Himself made no difference between guilty woman and guilty 
man. His refusal thus to distinguish is well seen in the tradi- 
tional story interpolated at the beginning of John viii., a story 
unmistakably based on fact. It was one of the many points in 
which He was sharply opposed to His people and His time. 

There is not a point left in Mr Roberts's belittling of 
the Sermon on the Mount which a sober critical exegesis 
will not dispose of. It is, of course, perfectly true that " alms- 
giving implies a failure of social justice." But the supreme 
motive power which has enabled the modern world to realise 
this fact, dimly as yet, but with increasing conviction, is the 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 761 

teaching of Him who rediscovered the " Imperial Law " 
(James ii. 8), and made men recognise its unlimited application. 
Every social advance realised since He came has been forced 
forward by men of vision who saw the implications of His 
words and drove them home upon the consciences of men : 
their hearers confessed the obligation when they saw His 
authority behind it. It is quite true that in many things 
" Jesus has been unable to get His own followers to obey His 
rule." But on the Christian theory that is entirely natural. 
He came just at the time when the world was ready for Him. 
That is, there were men ready to grasp His great ideals and 
preach them ; and there were conditions which made possible 
the speedy working out of many of these ideals in a very 
considerable measure. But with many others it was not so. 
Most conspicuously His absolute condemnation of war was 
a " great thought " that " was too great " for man in that stage 
of progress. It is too great still, though all the most en- 
lightened followers of Jesus recognise its cogency. The " day 
of the good Lord Jesus " " has only dawned. It will come by 
and by." 

Mr Roberts exaggerates, for the purpose of his argument, 
the imperfections of our knowledge of Jesus as a historical 
teacher. He quotes Schmiedel's " pillars," but seems to share 
the error of a good many orthodox critics of the Zurich pro- 
fessor. Dr Schmiedel has, with pardonable warmth, protested 
against those who have taken his famous nine passages as the 
only real certainties he would allow in the life of Jesus. He 
meant them, he tells us, as conclusive evidence of His historical 
reality, as against the fantastic theorists who proclaim in the 
wilderness their pseudo-critical scepticism. I can hardly be- 
lieve that Mr Roberts personally believes that these cobwebs 
of a minute school of universal deniers are really deserving 
of serious treatment. Let me commend to him the severe 
rebukes which Professor Harnack metes out to less advanced 
sceptics in some of his latest work. 1 That the silence of non- 

1 Thus Sayings of Jesus, pp. 233 f. (E.T.). 



762 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Christian literature can possibly have any significance whatever, 
the critic would have a hard task to prove. He would have to 
search for evidence that our extant literature ever did trouble 
itself appreciably with lower-class movements even in the 
centres of government. That any Greek or Roman writer 
would have heard of an artisan from Palestine, who taught 
for a few months and then perished by the sentence of a petty 
cfiarge d'affaires, is wildly improbable. Our almost total ignor- 
ance of other important religious movements, which did not 
ultimately force their way into general recognition, will be 
sufficient demonstration. I may refer here to Professor Franz 
Cumont's recent lectures, in which he urges this fact with all 
the authority of an expert admittedly supreme in his subject. 1 

Perhaps it is not necessary to say more as to the failure 
of Mr Roberts's criticism of the historical Jesus. I pass to the 
stronger and more important part of his essay, on the churches' 
doctrine of the Divine Christ. The difficulty Mr Roberts 
feels about the Kenosis I shall not discuss as a philosopher 
or a theologian I am neither, but only from the standpoint 
of homely common sense. His closing sentences take for 
granted that the concept " God " is one we can comprehend 
all round and completely. But that defies the fundamental 
notions from which all language about " God " must start. If 
God is omnipotent, how can we deny Him power to limit 
Himself and become a man ? In dealing with the notion of 
infinity, mathematical science knows how far it can secure 
sound results, and when the disturbing factor will produce 
confusion. And, similarly, we can distinguish many fields of 
thought wherein it is possible for finite minds to contemplate 
God the Infinite with intelligence, and with a reasonable hope 
of attaining truth. But there is a point in every such in- 
vestigation where the factor of infinity comes in and baffles 
our reasoning ; and we have to expect it and understand why 
it must be so. Now it cannot be denied that the theory of 
Christianity reveals to us an entirely reasonable motive for 

1 Les religions orientates dans le paganisme romain, pp. 1 3 ff. 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 763 

an Incarnation. The appearance of a perfect man, perfectly 
and absolutely human, but free from the faults which blur 
even the greatest and best of other examples, is an event that 
we can see to be necessary for the perfecting of the race. We 
have this attained, on the Christian theory, by the entrance of 
God into human life in a new form every human virtue seen 
in its ideal completeness, and without the weaknesses which 
in other men detract from the character as a perfect whole. 
Such a theory may not be at all points comprehensible. As 
it has to do with God, it would be a contradiction to expect 
otherwise. But it is obviously reasonable wherever our reason 
can touch it. Mr Roberts's criticisms seem only to lie against 
a Kenosis which is imperfectly carried out. To me, at least, 
no Incarnation is intelligible or capable of fulfilling its purpose 
which does not involve the production of a humanity which is 
real as real as my own, but without a single one of the flaws 
by which I recognise my manhood inferior to the best man- 
hood I know, on the several sides of character and capacity 
that they affect. 

Assume that Jesus possessed a faculty to which man 
has never shown anything analogous that He knew the 
Copernican system, or understood wireless telegraphy, or had 
other knowledge of the authorship of a psalm than was 
possible for a man of His time and His humanity becomes 
to me an unreal thing : He is no example to me, because He 
possesses just the one element which makes all the difference 
in the human struggle to do right. But let Him be genuinely 
human, differing from me only as an absolutely perfect man 
differs from an imperfect one, and His humanity becomes an 
inspiration of unlimited power. Nor can I understand the 
existence of this perfect man except on the theory let it 
mean what it may that before that human birth at 
Bethlehem He who brought the first joy of parenthood into 
Joseph and Mary's home dwelt as Lord in the world of spirit 
that lies beyond our ken. 

Now, of course, if this Christian kenotic theory is true 



764 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

and even if the older theories are true, which I find myself 
unable to follow the limitations of the historical Jesus are 
obvious. He spoke Aramaic and sometimes Greek. His 
intellectual training was what a Galilean peasant's home 
could supply. The intuitions of genius were coloured by the 
Jewish conditions and expressed along the lines of Jewish 
thought. Had He appeared in the land of Socrates, or in 
the land of Gautama, His humanity would have been very 
different in its characteristics, though equally perfect in its 
moral and spiritual equipment. That He appeared among 
the people which had shown the highest religious and ethical 
genius, rather than among those who held the primacy of 
intellect or those who had developed mystical reflexion to 
its highest degree, is one among many facts that show the 
Providence behind it all. If God was to speak to men with 
human voice, every line of thought shows us how the historical 
record of Jesus satisfies one after another the requirements our 
knowledge and our instinct realise to be most fitting. 

But if the Carpenter of Nazareth had a mission to the 
world, it is obvious that these limitations must be transcended. 
He must become no longer a citizen of Nazareth, or a speaker 
of Aramaic, or a contemporary of the first Caesars. He must 
be at home in Manchester, in Bombay, in Pekin, in Fiji, 
with a message that twentieth-century inhabitants of cities 
and villages of civilisation and barbarism can understand. 
What is this but to say that Jesus must become Christ, the 
Universal Man who is now no longer like other men, for He 
is God and man in one ? The germs of this conception must 
have fallen into the mind of the first missionaries as soon as 
ever they crossed the borders of their own country. In the 
fertile intellect of Paul, the Jew, the Greek, the Roman, the 
idea soon sprang to its full maturity. His relative indifference 
to the details of the great Teacher's life is fully explained by 
his realisation of His world-wide significance. A perfect 
human life, offered to God in obedience that did not stop 
short of death on the cross, was being made available for every 



JESUS OR CHRIST? 765 

man on the earth, to be an immanent Divine humanity that 
could supply power for perfect living. That was Paul's Gospel, 
drawn from his own experience, and the insight of a unique 
spiritual genius. And if Paul could understand it from what 
he saw in missions within the old Roman Empire, cannot we 
see it more convincingly still, if possible, from missions that 
cover the world ? It is perfectly fair to ask for credentials of 
the stupendous claim that is made for Jesus as Christ, nor do 
I object to the demand that they should be " credentials which 
would never have occurred to a Paul or a Plutarch." But si 
quceris, drcumspice. Read such a survey of the world outlook 
as is presented in Mr J. R. Mott's remarkable speech in the 
Albert Hall last November. 1 See how in every part of the 
world men and women of every race and every state of 
culture, or absence of culture, are pressing towards Christianity, 
while the old Christian states slumber oblivious, and only a 
handful of enthusiasts are awake to the opportunity, What 
is this that is sweeping over Korea like a prairie fire, drawing 
Brahmin and Pariah in India, taming the cannibal in the New 
Hebrides within one missionary's career, and at the same time 
winning the devotion of the lowest and the highest in our own 
country, the simple rustic and the choicest brains among the 
young students of our Universities ? Credentials ! Is not 
the Bible House in Queen Victoria Street worth all the 
apologetics in the world ? Take any book ever written, the 
very flower of literature and the supremest effort of human 
thought, translate it into 412 languages, from Sanskrit down 
to the rudest jargon of savages, and scatter it broadcast over 
the world. When that is done, and the books have sold 
everywhere and brought civilisation and humanity wherever 
they have gone, it will be time to discuss whether there is 
anything unique in Christianity. 

And, let it be remembered, what has done all this is the 
New Testament as it stands, and the Gospels first of all. It is 

1 Modern World Movements. Published by the Student Christian Move- 
ment, 93 Chancery Lane, W.C. 



766 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Jesus, then, whose triumphs are witnessed to-day by mission- 
aries in every quarter of the globe. But if this Jesus is 
nothing more than a supremely good Jew of the olden time, 
of whom we know very little, so that a learned man from 
somewhere or other has even determined Him to be a myth, 
how are we going to explain the way the world is going after 
Him ? The simple fact is that neither Jesus nor Christ could 
do it : Jesus Christ alone can work the marvel we see to-day. 
Those who think it all incredible should go and look for 
themselves. They would find men and women of races and 
cultures and languages lying poles asunder all taking hold in 
their different ways of this unlettered Jew of long ago. By 
an instinct that men cannot explain, they all find in Him their 
own countryman and contemporary, the Friend of their own 
daily life, the Strength of their realised weakness. Who less 
than the Son of Man, He who is Universal Man because He 
was God over all, could thus meet the heart's needs of every 
son of man ? The earliest message of Christian preachers was 
"Jesus Christ is Lord." It is the message still, and we win 
our way to it through paths of rigid historical and higher 
criticism, comparative religion, and broad unprejudiced modern 
outlook on the facts of life to-day. To deny it is to throw 
away the only key that can unlock the mystery of the world. 

JAMES HOPE MOULTON. 

DIDSBURY COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 



MORAL FORCE IN WAR. 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR REGINALD C. HART, 
V.C., K.C.B., K.C.V.O. 

MILITARY history illustrates the eternal truth of Napoleon's 
dictum that the moral forces in war are to the physical as 
three to one, and unless a commander not only admits this but 
is capable of applying it in practice, he is not a true leader of 
men, no matter how thorough his knowledge of the material 
aspect of war, nor how great his intellectual qualifications. 
That so few men are endowed with the necessary intuition to 
give its true importance to this factor accounts for the fact 
that many generations of men produce even more rarely a 
Hannibal, a Caesar, or a Napoleon than they do a Kepler, a 
Herschel, or a Newton, whose marvellous calculations and 
discoveries are not perhaps so much affected by the moral 
factors. But there are distinguished generals with quick 
insight who approach more or less to the ideal leader, in the 
same way that there are many men of extraordinary intellect 
who approach more or less nearly to the standard of Newton. 
But, by the nature of things, there is a smaller proportion of 
men distinguished on the field of battle than in statesmanship, 
science, literature, or art. The great leader who can save a 
nation must be gifted with "qualities rare in their separate 
excellence, and wonderful in their combination." 

Of course a sensible man does not despair because he 
knows that he cannot be a Napoleon or a Samson ; he puts in 
practice the teaching of the parable of the talents and does his 

767 



768 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

best to do his duty in that state of life in which it has pleased 
God to call him, and he is satisfied that his mental attain- 
ments, or it may be his bodily strength, should reach a reason- 
able standard ; and we must not overlook that for soldiers to 
rise to pre-eminence they must be, to a greater extent than 
most other great men, favoured by a happy conjunction of 
favourable circumstances, such as favoured all the great com- 
manders who have astonished the world by their achievements. 

If it is admitted that the moral forces in war are really to 
the physical as three to one, it must clearly be right to foster 
and develop the moral faculties during the plastic state of 
youth. This wise course distinguished Sparta, and is in vogue 
in Japan, but that it has practically no place in the educational 
curriculum of the British Isles is only too well known, and it 
is to be regretted that in the home life, and in the schools, we 
do not give more serious attention to the moral training- 
such as inculcating in the young that duty, justice, honesty, 
truthfulness, unselfishness, patriotism, and so on, should be the 
moral equipment of every good citizen, and that a good name 
should be esteemed more highly than material prosperity. 

But, unfortunately, a boy's prospects depend too much upon 
a mere intellectual capacity, supplemented by a good memory, 
so that no care is taken to cultivate even his reasoning 
faculties, because success depends upon examinations that 
are based on mere knowledge, often so wholly undigested 
as not to be available for any practical application ; arid 
consequently, the boy with great force of character and high 
moral faculties, if without a good memory, is handicapped, 
and is accounted the inferior of the so-called clever boy, with 
his purely scholastic attainments, whom he may absolutely 
distance later in life. 

Prizes and scholarships fall, as a rule, to the lot of only 
those boys who are gifted with good memories that is, the 
boys who can acquire most knowledge and retain it, if only 
temporarily. And yet, why do so few of these early prodigies 
ever make their mark in after life ? The answer is not far to 



MORAL FORCE IN WAR 769 

seek : it is because brains, knowledge, and a splendid educational 
equipment are insufficient for success in life if unaccompanied 
by certain moral qualities. What is the use of the highest 
ability and knowledge to a general in the field if he is lacking 
in physical and moral courage, in determination and decision ? 
It is admitted that a great general must possess consider- 
able knowledge in addition to a strong character and many 
high moral qualities, and he must necessarily be intellectual, 
and indeed, to be successful, he requires more and higher 
physical and moral qualities than are necessary to be successful 
in any other calling in life. Consequently, it is unreasonable 
to expect a general to make no mistakes and never to err in 
judgment. The chances are that a general in command 
being, like other men, liable to human error, will of necessity 
make mistakes ; indeed, the physical and mental strain induced 
by exceptional circumstances of great complexity produce 
conditions so abnormal that it has well been said by Turenne 
that when a man has made no faults in war he has 
not made war long. And Napoleon said : " In the practice 
of war, the game is always with him who makes the fewest 
mistakes." Consequently, we should judge of a commander's 
capacity not so much by his errors as by the great things he 
has done even Napoleon committed deplorable errors ; but 
to judge his errors by the light of the knowledge now at our 
disposal is absurd and unfair when it is just this knowledge 
that was not available at the time he based his decision and 
action on data sifted from a mass of uncertain, unreliable, 
misleading, and even false reports. Hence the value of 
intelligence and reasoning power combined with strength of 
character in a man who has to draw deductions, and who, in 
the light of later reports, may have to rectify the consequences 
of any false moves, and with quick insight take advantage of 
the errors of his opponent. Further, we have to admit that 
Fortune plays so important a part in war that a general has 
to be on the watch to profit by her favours, but well knowing 
that the fickle goddess is given to deception, and may suddenly 
VOL. VII. No. 4. 49 



770 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

turn and rend her favourite. We know how seldom the 
highest qualities are combined in one man, therefore we 
should not be surprised that a nation seldom produces a 
commander of the first order. All this explains why critics 
find it so easy to point out why a commander should have 
acted otherwise than he actually did act. It is difficult for 
them to realise that while everything is known and fixed for 
them, the general was dealing with dissolving views and had 
to see everything through a kaleidoscope and imagine what he 
could not know. It is far easier to describe a complicated 
machine when its inanimate parts are at rest ; and in the same 
way it is quite a different thing to criticise a battle after it is 
over than to deal with it when it is a living thing and its 
animate parts are moving, and sometimes very differently 
from the way anticipated by the generals. 

Napoleon said : ." It is rare and difficult to find in one man 
all the qualities necessary for a great general. What is most 
desirable and immediately brings anyone to the front, is, that 
the understanding and the attainments should be in equilibrium 
with the character and the courage. If his courage is much 
superior to his attainments, a general attempts what is beyond 
his capacity ; and, on the contrary, if his character and his 
courage remain below his intelligence, he does not dare carry 
out his plans." 

Supposing a British general goes in command of an army, 
what moral forces can he awaken ? Can he appeal to glory 
as Napoleon did, to religion as Cromwell did, or to duty as 
Wellington and Nelson ? Hardly at first to glory, in these 
days when militarism is openly condemned by public speakers 
as if it were an accursed thing, like a vampire sucking the very 
life-blood of the people. Some will suggest patriotism. But 
has patriotism such a strong hold on the nation ? Well, it is 
most probable he will make no formal appeal to any moral 
forces. It is not now a British custom to do so. But what 
may happen is this. If the commander is a real leader of men, 
as soon as he has established confidence, he will be beloved 



MORAL FORCE IN WAR 771 

and idolised by his troops, and great victories will call into 
being many moral forces, but they will be personal to him. 
Remove him from his command, and his successor will not, at 
first at all events, have these forces at his disposal. It was 
acknowledged by the Duke of Wellington that the presence 
of Napoleon in the army was equivalent to a reinforcement of 
40,000 men, and that was in the days of small armies ; in these 
days it would be far more. Surely a great general is a 
valuable national asset ! 

It is instructive to study the moral forces that contributed 
so largely to the Japanese victories. It is sufficient to say 
that religion, call it any other name you like, enters into the 
daily private and public life of the whole nation. Boys and 
girls alike are brought up to treat their parents with honour, 
respect, and unselfish devotion, and to revere past genera- 
tions to whom all living men are so much indebted. The 
young people are thoroughly disciplined, lofty ideals are set 
before them, and the moral training at home and at school 
receives the most careful attention and produces that extra- 
ordinary patriotism that is associated with a spirit of self- 
restraint, patience, unselfishness, and absolute self-sacrifice 
when occasion demands it. 

These virtues are the cause of other virtues, so that there 
is cohesion and perfect discipline in the nation. The people 
are frugal, sober, and love honour in war more than life. If 
the influence of religion has weakened in Christian countries, 
it is important to know why, because religion is a mighty 
lever in the hands of a general who commands an army of 
God-fearing soldiers. Are the people to blame, or the priests, 
or both ? 

In Japan, the young men and women of the nobility and 
wealthy classes would think it dishonourable to devote the 
best years of their lives to idleness and the pursuit of selfish 
pleasure, because they are taught that it is wrong not to work. 

Too much wealth, luxury and ease, and security from 
foreign aggression develop not favourably the character of a 



772 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

nation. It is perhaps as well, if the manly spirit of England 
is to be retained, that security from aggression will become less 
and less as the navigation of the sea and air becomes easier. 
Nothing short of that will persuade us that we should rely 
upon the manhood of the nation, and not so much upon our 
wealth and our battleships. Rome was never so great as 
when she was fighting for her very existence against Hannibal. 
We know what caused the decline of Rome. It is wrong to 
say that money is the sinews of war. Money or mercenaries 
never saved a nation. The sinews of war are the flesh, bone, 
and blood of the people. 

" But who can gauge the emotions, their strange variation 
of intensity and expression, the weird fashion in which some- 
times they will be left quiescent, or sometimes unexpectedly 
aroused ? Who can say what will of a certainty appeal 
to them?" 

Napoleon understood the art of working upon the emotions, 
but he said he could not impart the secret to his generals. 
Such an apparent trifle as a strain of martial music, or even 
the state of the weather, may have a marked effect upon the 
animal spirits, and the men may be sullen and gloomy to-day 
who but yesterday carried victory on the points of their 
bayonets. Will they now advance, or will they retire ? Has 
the limit of human endurance been reached ? There is nothing 
certain in battle. 

It is not conceivable that there are many men in an 
army who care to fight, and risk death and mutilation, with 
no more intelligible motive than the mere love of fighting and 
bloodshed. 

The emotions do not depend upon reasoning, nor does 
inspiration. The emotions are great moral forces that may be 
the cause of the most startling physical effects. Can we give 
a better example than the marvellous achievements of Joan 
of Arc ? 

It requires great practical knowledge of human nature and 
reflection to understand how a soldier may be clever, accom- 



MORAL FORCE IN WAR 773 

plished, and a good general in peace, or in a subordinate 
capacity, and yet fail utterly when in chief command in war. 

All we can do is to improve our knowledge of human 
nature, and, by fostering in ourselves the emotion of sympathy, 
render ourselves capable of viewing the frailties of our fellow- 
men with more indulgence, and, by so doing, treat them with 
more justice ; but to expect to entirely transform the un- 
emotional or the essentially unsympathetic temperament would 
be to expect the Ethiopian to change his skin or the leopard 
his spots. 

Darwin states that " the moral faculties are generally and 
justly esteemed of higher value than the intellectual." This is 
so in private life, but if it is not generally observed in the 
army, we must admit that it is infinitely more difficult to 
gauge the moral than the intellectual faculties of officers, 
especially if they have not been through the ordeal of battle. 

Darwin considers that man's sympathies have been rendered 
more tender and widely diffused through the effects of habit, 
example, instruction, and reflection. " It is not improbable 
that after long practice virtuous tendencies may be inherited. 
With the more civilised races the conviction of an all-seeing 
Deity has had a potent influence on the advance of morality." 
" The moral qualities are advanced, either directly or indirectly, 
much more through the effects of habit, the reasoning powers, 
instruction, religion, etc., than through natural selection.'' 
How little is done to advance the moral qualities in the young 
by attention to the reasoning powers, instruction, and religion 
has already been stated. 

To return to the dictum of Napoleon. We find that all 
the physical factors population, financial resources, armed 
strength were manifold higher for Russia than for Japan, 
but the victorious Japanese proved that the moral forces in 
war are, as they always have been, to the physical as not less 
than three to one. 

A physical cause, shot and shell, will produce but a small 
physical effect in battle, unless it produces also a moral effect 



774 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

giving rise to a moral force that may produce a great physical 
effect. And it is the physical effect that we strive to bring about 
in war, but we should first produce the moral effect which in 
its turn is the cause of the physical effect. War itself is caused 
by moral forces that arise from moral or physical causes. It 
would not be unprofitable to consider what have been the 
causes of the greatest wars from the siege of Troy to the 
present era. 

In naval warfare, the physical cause may produce the 
necessary physical effect by sinking the ship, but it is even 
better if such a moral effect is produced that the ship strikes 
her flag and becomes a prize. The whole art of war consists in 
producing the greatest physical effect at a decisive point. This 
is so easy to understand that the uninitiated can see no difficulty 
in conducting war, and no excuse for errors in judgment. 
But what seems so simple to understand is often so difficult to 
do, because in war there is a vast difference between the 
theory and its practical application, and the gulf that separates 
the simple theory from the difficult practice can be crossed 
only by men of rare qualities who must be in close touch 
and sympathy with human nature, which is so easily affected, 
so weak and yet so strong, so readily elated and yet so 
quickly depressed. 

We observe a great physical effect in a battle : the troops 
suddenly lose heart and give way run away. We say the 
cause was a panic. Then the cause was a moral force which 
itself had a cause. What was the cause ? It was necessarily 
1 of a physical or a moral nature. Then here we have a physical 
or a moral cause producing a moral force, a panic, which in 
its turn produces a great physical effect which gives victory to 
one side, defeat to the other. 

A panic is "a sudden unreasonable, overpowering fear, 
especially where affecting a large number simultaneously." 
" A fear that feeds upon itself. Men in a panic are frightened 
at finding themselves afraid." Well-known examples are 
the siege of Samaria, B.C. 868 ; Marathon, Wagram and 



MORAL FORCE IN WAR 775 

Badajos. The causes of these panics are recorded. The 
Syrians before Samaria were panic-stricken by hallucinations 
moral causes. At Marathon a moral cause someone saw, 
or imagined he saw, the god Pan. At Wagram the French 
during the night after their victory imagined a squadron of 
horse was a great attack a physical cause. At the assault of 
Badajos another physical cause a lighted match caused the 
victorious troops to imagine a mine which had no existence. 

It is a psychical fact not understood, that a panic is 
infectious and spreads like wildfire. Perhaps something 
psychical like telepathy explains it. Further, it is not only 
men who are liable to panic ; animals, especially horses, are 
subject to panic. " The wicked flee when no man pursueth." 
" Ye shall flee when none pursueth you." 

" I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of 
their enemies : and the sound of a driven leaf shall chase 
them ; and they shall flee, as one fleeth from the sword ; and 
they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall stumble 
one upon another, as it were before the sword, when none 
pursueth." 

Consequently, a commander has to be on his guard against 
any cause that may produce against him such a moral force as 
a panic with its attendant serious physical effects, and at the 
same time he should strive to cause this force to act in the 
ranks of his enemy. It should be the aim of a general to 
depress the moral of the enemy while fostering, raising and 
maintaining that of his own troops. But this is the gift of 
few men. 

Frederick the Great said : "In a lost battle the greatest 
evil is not the loss of men, but the discouragement of the 
troops that is the result." " Victories are determined by deeds 
and their consequences." 

Napoleon was in agreement with Frederick when he in- 
sisted that a nation recovers more easily its losses in men than 
it recovers its honour. This accounts for the effects of a great 
battle often being so decisive and changing the destinies of 



776 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

empires and nations. That the Romans maintained their 
moral after Hannibal's crushing victories is evidence of their 
greatness, and is the best example we can adduce of the 
importance of the moral as compared with the physical factors 
in the welfare of nations. 

Now, this is all fairly simple, because we have only con- 
sidered physical and moral cause and effect, but there is a 
third factor, namely, psychical cause and effect, that introduces 
complexity so abstruse that it would answer no practical 
purpose in this essay to do more than refer to its existence. 
For example, thought is a psychical phenomenon that may 
be suddenly and unexpectedly received in the brain, and be 
capable of changing the whole aspect of affairs, but all we can 
do in anticipation is to bear in mind that in war the sudden and 
unexpected is sure to happen. Nothing is certain in war, and 
it cannot be reduced to exact mathematical calculations. It 
is for this reason that a general should sketch out his plans in 
mere outline only, because it is beyond the wit of man to 
foretell what will happen. 

Psychical phenomena have only recently been scientifically 
studied, but it is generally allowed that telepathy, thought trans- 
ference, reflex action and suggestion, may produce great effects. 
For example, it is suggested to a man, or he suggests it to him- 
self, that he will be successful or be unsuccessful, that he will 
live or die, and the suggestion may produce a marked effect. 

If the general suggests to himself defeat, it soon injuriously 
affects his troops. During his reconnaissance of the Roman 
army before the great battle of Cannag, Hannibal made a jest 
that was repeated throughout the army, and it suggested to 
the Carthaginians that their general must be certain of victory 
or he could not be so light-hearted. It is not impossible that 
Hannibal's humour may have just turned the balance of 
victory in his favour. 

Let us now consider courage and its antithesis fear, which 
are moral forces that are of so much concern in war. The 
brave man draws others on, the coward holds them back. 



MORAL FORCE IN WAR 777 

The bravery of the Homeric heroes and of those of Ther- 
mopylse is kept fresh in our memories. Will the Spaniards 
ever cease to admire the men and women of Saragossa ? But 
how many schoolboys have ever heard of the bravery of the 
British troops at Albuera, or of the sublime courage of those 
on board the Birkenhead when she foundered in 1852 ? Why 
are not these examples, and many others, impressed upon the 
rising generations ? 

What, then, are the causes of the moral forces courage and 
fear, and can we manipulate these forces ? 

The cause is sometimes physical, and the state of the 
stomach or health is the best understood, and yet men in bad 
health have been extremely brave, because their will-power 
overcame the weakness of the body. Take Marshal Saxe, 
who won the battle of Fontenoy in 1745, "nearly dead of 
dropsy ; could not sit on horseback except for a few minutes ; 
was carried about in a wicker bed ; and had a lead bullet in 
his mouth all day to mitigate the intolerable thirst." 

But the causes of courage are mostly moral. There is 
some mysterious working in the minds of ordinary men that 
gives a force of character that determines them to ignore or 
control the strong natural instinct of self-preservation and 
to accept self-sacrifice more or less completely. Sympathy, 
religious emotion, patriotism, a high sense of honour, and pride, 
are conducive to courage. If the invaders wantonly provoke 
animosity, they may give rise to such a feeling of resentment 
as will inspire a courage that will turn the scale in the war. 
Those who sow the wind may reap the whirlwind. 

Some generals have believed that courage is innate, others 
that it is acquired. Be this as it may, some men, like certain 
breeds of dogs, appear to be born unconscious of fear, whereas 
others are born unduly timid. Most men lie between these 
two extremes. We must, however, be careful to differentiate 
between the brave man who by nature is insensible to 
outside impressions and the equally brave man whose nervous 
temperament is the opposite of calm. A horse is not a coward 



778 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

because he is an extremely nervous animal. Then we have 
blind, unreflecting courage as opposed to deliberate calculating 
courage, and so on. But there is not much profit in pursuing 
the subject further, except to remark that the true leader of 
men has his hand, so to speak, on the pulse, and he instinctively 
knows the temper of his men. 

" In all battles," said Napoleon, " the time comes when 
the bravest soldiers, after having made the grandest efforts, 
feel disposed to run away. This terror is caused by a want 
of confidence in their courage ; it requires only the slightest 
cause, a mere pretext, to restore to them their courage ; the 
great art is to produce it." Of this great art Napoleon was 
master : the mere fact of his presence was sufficient to rally 
his troops and restore their courage. 

In other words, a leader imagines instinctively, or by 
reasoning process conceives correctly, how his men will act 
under the existing circumstances. He produces the cause 
which produces this moral force which will move the masses 
to produce a wished -for physical effect. If the leader's 
instinct, or reasoning process, is incorrect, the wished-for 
results do not materialise. The more often he is correct the 
greater his leadership. Something may happen to interrupt 
the supposed course of events. If man's judgment was 
infallible and he had perfect foresight he would not have 
erred in what he supposed to be the course of events. We 
have said that a leader instinctively conceives, but really an 
unconscious process of reasoning takes place, so rapid as to be 
like instinct. 

Religious feeling is a moral cause that produces an almost 
irresistible moral force. We need only recall the religious 
enthusiasm of the followers of Moses, Joshua, Mahommed, 
Cromwell, and scores of others. Religion is such a mighty 
factor in war that the general who makes no use of it 
gratuitously deprives himself of a powerful weapon. Indeed, 
the greatest things have been done by armies of God-fearing 
men. 



MORAL FORCE IN WAR 779 

Organisation and administration give rise to discipline, 
which is a moral force. Napier speaks of "the mechanical 
courage of discipline," and we have heard of the practice of 
the parade-ground becoming the instinct of the battlefield. 

We now come to leadership, and commence by stating 
that it may be possible to overestimate the value of experience 
to a genius for war, but the ordinary man cannot acquire a 
sound military judgment without laborious study, reflection, 
and practical experience. Errors in judgment are generally 
the result of deficient intelligence. 

But when all has been said, the great general is only one 
small physical unit ; and yet he may move, according to his 
will, hundreds of thousands of similar units and masses of 
physical matter that is to say, a whole army with its impedi- 
menta ; and more still, he may perhaps also move the opposing 
army. How does he do it? Certainly not by his muscles. 
Then it must be something psychical. Simply stated, the 
brain of the general conceives an idea or thought, and finally 
a wish or intention. The next step is to convey this wish to 
many other brains and make it their own, because the troops 
themselves must move their own muscles in response to the 
idea, thought, or wish. The something psychical that has 
been referred to is a God-like faculty that in our present 
ignorance cannot yet be fully analysed, but we must admit its 
existence, and that the intangible psychical idea or thought 
does pass over through the medium of the brain into the 
material world where physical phenomena alone can be seen, 
heard, or touched. In other words, the idea, thought, or wish 
becomes materialised. 

Sir Oliver Lodge says : " Consider what occurs during 
speaking and writing. An idea is conceived in the mind ; 
but in order to make itself known or to act as a stimulus, 
it must move matter." In other words, the muscles of the 
throat or hand. " The rearrangement of matter is all that we 
are able to accomplish in the physical world. The only way 
we can touch the material world is through our muscles. But 



780 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

a thought belongs to a different order. How can it get itself 
translated into terms of motion ? Physiology partially informs 
us of the method, and the brain is the organ of translation. 
But what stimulates the brain ? In many cases reflex action ; 
though since that involves no consciousness, it is of small 
psychical interest. By what means the psychical gets out of 
its region into the physical no one knows, but it is a process 
on which discovery is possible. The brain is definitely the 
link between the two universes or modes of existence. It may 
not be the only link, but it is the only link we know of." 

Now, let us try and apply all this to war. The general 
has an idea ; he wishes to move matter (his troops) from their 
position to another position, and perhaps one already occupied 
by the enemy. How does he do it ? That is to say, how does 
he get his idea or thought translated into motion ? 

Well, he begins by translating his thought through the 
organ of the brain into the motion of the muscles required for 
speech or writing, or, in other words, he materialises his thought 
so that it may be communicated to others by means of their 
ordinary senses, and in this way his thought or idea is also 
conceived by each one of his soldiers, and each one at the 
proper time translates that idea into motion, and so the whole 
mass of matter the army moves in the required direction, 
overcoming the resistance offered by gravity and by the oppo- 
sition of the enemy, or refuses to be moved by the enemy if 
such is the idea. But what is the practical use of all this ? 
Before answering, we must ask another question. How is it 
that one general can get his troops to move, or stand fast, 
according to his wishes, whereas another cannot do so, or not 
nearly so well ? It is because of his superior ascendancy over 
the minds of his men. That is a characteristic of the man and 
cannot be created by study ; but if it exists, it can be developed 
by increased knowledge of human nature that is acquired by 
experience and by a greater capacity for sympathy as the years 
go by. Well, the practical use of all this is that, in selecting 
leaders, far more weight should be given to personal character- 



MORAL FORCE IN WAR 781 

istics that carry with them ascendancy over the minds and 
wills of others, and less weight should be attached to mere 
professional knowledge, capacity to pass good examinations, 
and do good work in the office. The men follow their officers, 
and if from want of professional knowledge disaster should 
result, the officers have much to answer for. Therefore we 
must not slight the examination test. To be a real leader, 
a man must inspire confidence, and an officer without sufficient 
professional knowledge would not inspire confidence. 

The great leader gives birth to the great moral forces, and 
he controls these forces, as did Alexander, Hannibal, Scipio, 
Caesar, Cromwell, and Napoleon. He obtains ascendancy over 
the minds of men. He rides the whirlwind and directs the 
storm of human passions. He appeals through the imagination, 
affection, and conscience to love of honour and glory, enthusi- 
asm, esprit de corps, patriotism, resentment, self-interest, pride 
of race, birth, religion, self-sacrifice, loyalty and devotion. He 
is everybody and everything, the life and soul of his army ; 
his army is as nothing in comparison. Has not history proved 
it ? It has been said, better an army of deer commanded by a 
lion than an army of lions commanded by a deer. 

It was Hannibal and Napoleon who crossed the Alps ; their 
armies only followed. " Of all that befell the Romans and 
Carthaginians," says Polybius, " good or bad, the cause was one 
man and one mind Hannibal." It was Mack who surrendered 
at Ulm, Bazaine at Metz, and Napoleon III. at Sedan. Of 
course, a general may be defeated, but the circumstances may 
cover him with honour and glory, as Leonid as at Thermopylae. 

Under modern peace conditions, preferment perhaps neces- 
sarily goes to the intelligent, hard-working officer whose 
patient spirit frets not under the drudgery of office routine, 
possibly a man without any force of character or any of the 
high qualities requisite in a leader. Consequently, the ranks 
of the army are far more likely to produce a Mack than a 
Cromwell, and the great leader has in the strife of political 
life a fairer field and more scope for his commanding character- 



782 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

istics. Indeed, it may happen that a man may, through force 
of circumstances, make no headway at all in the military 
profession for which under different conditions he was a born 
leader. At all events, it is significant what a small proportion 
of modern generals have been great men. A man is not great 
because he is a great general he is a great general because 
he is a great man. 

Great leaders are abnormal, and no two can resemble each 
other. Each must command in his own peculiar way. Wel- 
lington and Nelson always appealed, and not in vain, to a sense 
of duty ; Napoleon never, but always to glory. Some leaders 
harangue their troops, others do not ; but each one in his own 
peculiar way may produce the moral force he desires. 

Marshal Saxe was right when he said that it is not the big 
armies that win battles ; it is the good. And, notwithstanding 
the mechanical inventions for the destruction of life, small 
armies of brave, disciplined, well-equipped, and well-commanded 
troops will in the future, as in the past, vanquish large armies, 
however brave, if they are ill-commanded, ill-trained, ill- 
disciplined, and consequently lack confidence and cohesion. 

In modern warfare the moral forces are perhaps mostly 
produced by moral, less often by physical causes. The moral 
causes are invisible, inaudible, intangible and mysterious. 
There is that mysterious action of the mind, and apparently 
between mind and mind otherwise than through the known 
organs of the senses. " When one has no fear of death," says 
Napoleon, "one causes this fear to enter the enemy's ranks." 
It is not so much the gun as the courage or fear of the man 
behind the gun. 

In war, the moral forces act upon living bodies of men. 
Sir Oliver Lodge considers that " life is not a form of energy, 
but is a guiding or directing principle which can utilise and 
control terrestrial matter and energy to definite ends, producing 
results that would not otherwise have occurred, such as the 
nests of birds and the buildings of men." It is clear that Sir 
Oliver considers a living man to be an incarnation of soul in 



MORAL FORCE IN WAR 783 

matter, a temporary incarnation by a permanent entity or 
perhaps a part of a permanent entity. 

Sir Oliver asserts that life is dependent on matter for its 
phenomenal appearance and manifestation, and for all its 
terrestrial activities, but otherwise it is independent of matter. 
The mind or life incarnated in man is competent to disarrange 
or interfere with matter in other words, there is human 
guidance and spiritual control of matter, of energy, and of 
other lives and minds. " There was a magnetism about Marl- 
borough," says Lord Wolseley, "which made itself felt in 
every society which he frequented, and worked like a spell 
upon all who came within the circuit of its force." Napoleon 
at St Helena said : " I have inspired multitudes to die for 
me ; and then my presence was required ; the electricity of 
my look, my voice : a word from me, then the sacred fire was 
kindled in all hearts. I certainly possess the secret of that 
magic power which carries away other people's minds ; yet I 
could never communicate it to others. Not one of my 
generals ever received it from me, or guessed at it." Great 
leaders appear to receive inspirations, and to have the power 
to inspire their followers according to their will. 

In conclusion, what I have been leading up to is this : 
that a good general can produce, and then guide and control, 
most potent moral forces, so that they will affect the minds 
and, through the minds, the material bodies of the men who 
compose not only his own but the opposing army also, and 
thereby produce the most startling physical effects which may 
mean victory for one side and defeat for the other ; and if 
Governments are to select the true leaders they must not 
continue to ignore that in war the moral forces are to the 

physical as three to one. 

REGINALD C. HART. 

UNITED SERVICE CLUB. 



THE CONFUSION OF PRAGMATISM. 
PROFESSOR GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD, 

Yale University. 

EVERY attempt at that kind of reflective thinking which we 
call philosophy must have its success or failure largely judged 
by the way in which it treats its own underlying presupposi- 
tions. In order to credit this statement it is not necessary to 
estimate the relative value of that department of philosophy 
which sets to itself the task of discovering and criticising these 
presuppositions, and which is sometimes called Epistemology, 
Logic, or Theory of Knowledge ; nor is it essential to espouse 
either the Kantian or the Hegelian view of its place and value 
in systematic philosophy. In his own thinking, however, the 
writer on philosophical topics, even for the most popular 
audiences and when employing the liveliest style, should be 
clearly aware of, and should not muddle, the alleged truths 
which he takes for granted. 

To recognise, set in order, and to criticise in the light of 
history and of human experience the postulates of all human 
knowledge and thought is, indeed, a difficult task. It is not 
an easy thing even to do this valuable service, however candid 
the spirit and honest the effort with which the attempt is 
made, for any of the several so-called systems, or schools, of 
philosophy. But for that particular effort at a satisfying result 
which has espoused the title of " Pragmatism," the task seems 
peculiarly, even unnecessarily, baffling. So versatile and 
changeful is its method of ascertaining what is true, so naive 

784 



THE CONFUSION OF PRAGMATISM 785 

and varied its statements of results obtained by the method, 
and so hard is it to tie down to any one form of expression, 
that the searcher for the underlying assumptions is repeatedly 
disappointed, and often just at the point when he most flatters 
himself that his search is about to be rewarded. 

Nevertheless, I shall in this paper attempt to discover, and 
briefly to criticise, three of the many underlying asumptions of 
so-called Pragmatism. Those which I have selected are, first, 
its assumption with regard to the method and aim of philo- 
sophy ; second, its assumption as to the nature and guaranty 
of truth ; and third, its assumption as to the scope and 
sanctions of the ideas of value, of what men call good and 
worth trying for as a reasonable aim in life. Inasmuch as the 
particular writer on Pragmatism, 1 upon whom I must rely for 
information as to its opinions, has nowhere definitively or with 
clear implication discoursed about matters of art and the 
theory of beauty, from the pragmatist's point of view, I must 
confine myself, in treating of the third class of assumptions, to 
his remarks on morals and religion. In regard to all these 
assumptions, however, we shall find ourselves compelled to 
face three questions : What seems to be taken for granted ? 
What is said to be taken for granted ? and What is really 
taken for granted ? 

We inquire first, then : What is assumed by Pragmatism 
as to the method and aim of philosophy ? The preliminary 
answer to this inquiry is given in the form of an assertion, or 
rather a statement implicating a truth, in agreement with 
which all who take philosophy seriously will quickly be found. 
A man's philosophy, we are told, is really the most important 
and interesting thing about him ; its aim should be to " deter- 
mine the perspective " in our " several worlds," to satisfy our 
questionings as to what "life honestly and deeply means." 
This is not, on its face, so different in significance from the 

1 This criticism is based entirely upon the book which bears the title 
Pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, by Professor William 
James; Longmans, Green & Co., 1908. 

VOL. VII. No. 4. 50 



786 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

declaration of Fichte, one of the most abstract, rationalistic, 
and idealistic of modern philosophers, that a man's philosophy 
cannot sustain the same relation to him, to his true Self, as 
that sustained by his furniture, but must be an integral and 
vital part of that Self, in order to satisfy him at all worthily. 
Who does not see, however, that these very words of the 
pragmatist imply that somehow we may, at least approxi- 
mately, "determine the perspective of our several worlds," 
may discover what life deeply means, and by its aid may see 
" the total push and pressure of the cosmos." But several 
questions immediately recur. By what specific method shall 
we reach after, even if we do not reach, this desirable but 
extremely difficult point of perspective ? What is the scope 
of the life which demands these deeper satisfactions ; and 
what right have we to assume their superior value, or the 
possibility of man's reflective thinking to minister with some 
degree of success to these demands ? 

Just as we are raising these pressing questions and are 
hoping that the attempt to throw light upon them will some- 
what promptly begin especially since, as the very name 
Pragmatism suggests, the test of excellence and truth is found 
in practice we are led away to hear how the rationalists and 
idealists have been self-deceived by too much confidence in 
that which was, with them, merely individualistic and tempera- 
mental. Alas, they have also deceived others, and Pragmatism 
will put an end to this deception. There is undoubted historical 
truth in this view of temperamental influences. But instead 
of showing how the diversity of philosophies presents the truth 
from the various points of view as to that which philosophy 
seeks the universal and the true and following this by a 
warning to every thinker to know his own temperament, and, 
as far as possible, to be reasonable and guard himself against 
being led astray by it, we seem to hear commended, rather 
than cautioned, the trust in temperamental attitudes toward 
philosophical problems. Only the temperament must be the 
highly emotional and practical attitude of so-called Pragmatism. 



THE CONFUSION OF PRAGMATISM 787 

Now every trained student of the physical and natural sciences 
knows, or ought to know, what is his own so-called " personal 
equation," and just where he must distrust it ; must consider 
candidly and respectfully the testimony of others, hold judg- 
ment in abeyance until he has looked upon the subject as 
much as possible on all sides, and with other eyes, if he would 
to some good purpose pursue the scientific method to its 
successful result. This same thing, as to method, every 
amateur or trained philosopher knows, or ought to know, 
equally well. And if he does not know and practise it, no 
matter how suggestive his theories or seductive his style, he 
forfeits his claim to the philosophic temper ; his method is not 
the philosophic method for determining "the perspective of 
worlds," or for satisfying these " deeper needs " of the human 
mind. For reason, in the narrower meaning of that word, has 
its own life, its important part in determining the philosopher's 
perspective, and its demands for satisfaction for its own self by 
its own work. So far forth, rationalism stands for ever secure. 
When, then, we are subsequently reminded (p. 168) that, 
if the lecturer were suddenly to break off serious discourse 
upon philosophy and " begin to sing ' We won't go home till 
morning ' in a rich baritone voice," it would cause his audience 
not only to doubt his sanity, but might also alter their opinion 
of the pragmatic philosophy, the illustration, so far as it is 
pertinent at all, tends to confute the argument it is somehow 
intended to support. Such a breach of rational procedure 
ought, indeed, to discredit the rationality of any philosopher. 
That the person Nietzsche died in the madhouse can scarcely 
fail to throw some shadow over the sanity of Nietzsche's 
thinking; just as the opium-eating of Coleridge obviously 
clouds his otherwise often profoundly incisive dreams. But 
every calm and well-poised mind, on reflection, profoundly 
feels and deliberately judges that such tests ought to have 
nothing to do by way of determining the truthfulness of 
the pragmatic or any other system of philosophy. And it 
is some deeper fault in the conception and execution of the 



788 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

task of the reflective thinker which has caused Pragmatism to 
suffer from such misconceptions as the following : " A favourite 
formula," says Professor James (p. 233), "for describing Mr 
Schiller's doctrines and mine is that we are persons who think 
that by saying whatever you find it pleasant to say and calling 
it truth you fulfil every pragmatistic requirement." This is, 
indeed, a manifest exaggeration of the valid charge against 
Pragmatism. But it is only one of innumerable examples of 
the fact that the apparent method of philosophising adopted 
by it is too often a sort of wilful emotionalism ; and that its 
aim frequently seems to be to satisfy the sensational cravings 
of the unthinking crowd. But surely such a method can 
never enable us to determine the " perspective of the several 
worlds," or to meet the deepest needs of the human mind ; 
much less even can it give us insight into " the push and pull 
of the cosmos." 

When, however, we ask the pragmatist to state his views 
more clearly, if in less impressive and emotional manner, as 
to the real method and aim of philosophy, we get answers 
like the following : " The pragmatic method .... is to try 
to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical 
consequences " (p. 45). The pragmatist " turns towards 
concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action and 
towards power" (p. 51). Pragmatism asks of every philo- 
sophical opinion : " What difference would it practically make 
to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true ? " 
(p. 45). By this method it expects to reach the end of 
philosophy and settle " metaphysical disputes that otherwise 
might be interminable." Thus it is to prove itself "just the 
mediating way of thinking " which all men require all, that 
is, except the great body of would-be philosophers who 
remain outside the pragmatist fold, and thus are liable to 
be derided and rejected by that multitude who are to be 
saved from rationalism and idealism by the pragmatic method 
(p. 40). For Pragmatism is to act as a universal solvent for 
all stiff theories of the universe, a reconciler of opposite and 



THE CONFUSION OF PRAGMATISM 789 

conflicting opinions. " It agrees with nominalism, for instance, 
in always appealing to particulars ; with utilitarianism in 
emphasising practical aspects ; with positivism in its disdain 
for verbal solutions, useless questions, and metaphysical 
abstractions" (p. 53). It will do for science and religion 
what Mr Spencer had it in his heart to do, but miserably 
failed of accomplishing, because he did not understand the 
pragmatic method ; it will reconcile them to the satisfaction 
of both materialism and Christian theism (p. 39 f.). For, like 
Spencerian agnosticism, Pragmatism feels " its heart to be in 
the right place philosophically." 

Now this aim at reconcilement is universal with philo- 
sophers of every age and school ; it is of the very essence of 
philosophy. In the only place in which, so far as I am aware, 
I have the honour to be mentioned by pragmatist philosophers, 
I am said to be " tightly squeezed " between absolutism and 
agnosticism, because my attempts at the discussion of philo- 
sophical problems, however "fair-minded and candid," are 
not " radical in temper. " The resulting philosophy is, therefore, 
" a thing of compromises." " It lacks the victorious and 
aggressive note. It lacks prestige in consequence" (p. 18). 
It would be sad, indeed, if my deficiency of temper called 
"radical," with its "victorious and aggressive note," were 
the only distinguishing difference in these contrasted methods 
of attempting reconciliation by a "fair-minded and candid" 
examination of the truth that is in any and all of the current 
scientific and philosophical opinions. 

No ; the superior excellence, the " victorious and aggres- 
sive note," of the new pragmatic philosophy must be due to 
the nature and the success of its method. We turn, then, 
again to the inquiry : What really is the method employed by 
so-called Pragmatism as itself "a thing of compromises," a 
hopeful means of " settling metaphysical disputes that might 
otherwise prove interminable " ? Here all hinges upon the 
meaning given to the word " practical," and to such phrases as 
" practical consequences," " practical differences," etc. And 



790 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

here I at once protest that nothing can be vaguer than the 
popular notions attaching to such terms ; and that nothing in 
the popular speech or in the pragmatist vocabulary is more 
misty, uncertain, and essentially indefinite than the use made 
of just these same terms. If, indeed, we cover by the word 
" practical " all kinds of human activities, everything that man 
does by way of thinking, feeling, conduct, and by the terms 
"practical consequences" and "practical differences," every- 
thing in the past, present, and future, whether by way of 
suffering and achieving, or by way of interpreting and explain- 
ing the " perspective of the several worlds," the satisfaction of 
humanity's deepest needs, the "feeling and seeing the push 
and pull of the cosmos," then, of course, not only philosophy, 
but science, politics, business, work and play, loving and 
hating, sinning and growing holy, are all to be tested for their 
value and their truth in the same way. But, understood thus, 
the formula becomes absolutely worthless, just because of its 
being absolutely and unquestionably true. Yet, in philosophy, 
as in every other sphere of man's living and action, and even 
in philosophy more peremptorily, the same questions perpetually 
recur : What sort of the practical ? Practical for whom, and 
when, and where ? Consequences of what sort, how measured, 
how determined, how realised, how known ? Differences also, 
of what sort, how estimated, how motived, by what possible 
means to be adjusted or arranged ? Any satisfactory answer 
to such questions as these can be attained only by that fair- 
minded, candid, and clear reflective thinking, on the basis of 
what is universal in human experience, which is the true 
method of philosophy a method that includes, but is not 
limited by, the method virtually prescribed and actually em- 
ployed by so-called Pragmatism. 

But when this same Pragmatism ceases boastfully to 
discourse of its superior method, and for the most part forgets 
to employ method at all, it naively and unconsciously strikes a 
truer though less shrilly triumphant note. Then we detect, 
amidst the confusion of sounds, an assumption familiar to all 



THE CONFUSION OF PRAGMATISM 791 

philosophers and of necessity made use of by them all. Then 
we hear how " the most violent revolutions in an individual's 
beliefs leave most of his old order standing " (p. 60). Nor is 
this old order so purely individualistic. For in all cases the 
influence of these beliefs is " absolutely controlling." The 
truth of new theological ideas " will depend entirely on their 
relations to the other truths that also have to be acknowledged " 
(p. 73). And this is as true of science as it is of theology. In 
the midst of all changes of opinion, there are " certain forms 
of thought " to which " no one escapes subjection." There are 
" common-sense Denkmittel which, in practice, are uniformly 
victorious" (p. 180 f.). [It seems, then, that even practical 
consequences and practical differences are subordinated to 
these universals.] Nor are these forms of thought, these 
common-sense Denkmittel, without guaranty in the world of 
reality. For although the pragmatist may propose a rejuven- 
ated form of Mr Spencer's worn-out theory as to how the 
race arrived at these universals (p. 170 f.), he none the less 
believes the warrant for them to be bedded in the very 
structure of the universe itself. Somehow, the microcosmos 
(human mind) answers to the macrocosmos, the universe on 
which it is dependent. Pragmatism to be sure does away 
with a " static correspondence " between the two (as though, 
indeed, any modern thinker conceived of this relation in so 
ridiculous terms) ; and for this it substitutes " a rich and active 
commerce." All and the " caches " must be somehow coherent, 
although we are far enough at times from seeing just how. 
There is, indeed, a real world-order ; arid in some sort " the 
notion of the absolute world is indispensable." Our astonish- 
ment is the less, then, when at the end of the chapter on the 
" Pragmatist's Notion of Truth " we read : "It is the 
pragmatists and not the rationalists who are the more genuine 
defenders of the universe's rationality " (p. 235). This we 
cannot admit. " Genuine defenders " they are not, in any 
genuine meaning of such a term. But rationalists, in reality, 
as respects the true and only method of philosophy, they 



792 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

certainly are ; as, in very truth, every reflective thinker must 
be. For the method which makes the underlying assumption 
that between the real universe, meaning by that the complex 
of things naively assumed to be somehow outlying the human 
mind, and this same human mind, there is a rich and active 
commerce, is an assumption indispensable to every attempt at 
the solution of " metaphysical problems." 

We conclude, then, with regard to the philosophic method 
of so-called Pragmatism, that it too often has the seeming to 
justify its reputation of being a species of wilful emotionalism ; 
that it defines itself in such a way as to render it either unin- 
telligible or unavailing ; but that when it forgets itself so far 
as to reveal its underlying assumption, it is quite properly 
rationalistic to the core. While as to philosophic aim, 
Pragmatism is only trying to do what all reflective thinking 
tries to do namely, discuss the problems implicated in the 
facts of experience, so as to harmonise and unify as far as 
possible the truths that are in them. And to accomplish this 
in some good measure, a fair-minded and candid examination 
at the court of reason, whether it wins popular applause 
and acceptance for the moment or not, is safer, and finally 
more productive of truth and other forms of practical good 
than is the use of the aggressive and victorious tone and the 
brilliant and captivating style which characterise the pragmatic 
method. 

A criticism of that portion of the pragmatist's doctrine, on 
which he seems especially to pride himself, and which has been, 
perhaps, most elaborated to some really good purpose, confirms 
the truth of what has already been said. For, in its assump- 
tions as to the nature and guaranty of truth, Pragmatism 
repeats many of the same fallacies, and confirms our estimate 
of certain of its deficiencies though not so conspicuously as is 
the case with its treatment of the method and aim of philo- 
sophy. Indeed, in discoursing upon the " Notion of Truth," 
it is difficult always to maintain the same triumphant and 
aggressive note, or to make anyone see clearly the value of 



THE CONFUSION OF PRAGMATISM 793 

your results, unless you are more ostensibly rationalistic. 
For is not a notion of truth which is not rationalistic impos- 
sible and self-contradictory ; since even Pragmatism believes 
that truths are the " good " things of reason, are reason's 
satisfactions ? The assumptions of the pragmatist philosophy, 
which underlie its so-called logic, are no less rationalistic and 
no more practical than are those of Kant or Hegel when 
dealing with the same difficult topic. On the contrary, the 
positions taken and held for the discussion of this difficult branch 
of philosophy are, in important respects, much inferior to those 
defended by either one of these great but divergent philosophies. 

In order, however, even briefly to criticise or comprehend 
the pragmatist's notion of what truth is (or rather, if they 
please, what truths are), and of how truth lays hold upon and 
claims the allegiance of the human mind, it is first necessary 
to expose an error in its psychological conception and doctrine. 
This error may in a measure explain why the pragmatist or 
Schiller-Dewey view of truth has been so "ferociously at- 
tacked by rationalistic philosophers and so abominably mis- 
understood." Why should it be attacked by rationalists, 
since it is itself rationalistic to the core ? and why misunder- 
stood, unless it be due to its unfortunate style, since it has 
already passed into the stage of being " admitted to be true, 
but obvious and insignificant " ? (p. 198). 

The psychological error to which I refer connects itself 
with the vague and improper use of that much abused word 
"idea." We are continually told about true and false ideas. 
We are asked to grant an idea to be true and then ask what 
concrete difference this makes with practice and all, in order 
to test conclusively the claims of that same idea to be true 
(p. 200). We listen to talk about ideas agreeing or disagreeing 
with reality ; and we are informed that although truth is a 
property inherent in ideas, it is not a "stagnant property." 
For truth just happens to an idea. The idea " becomes true, 
is made true by events." " Its verity is in fact an event," a 
process ; the process, namely, of its verifying itself, its veri- 



794 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-a^'ora" (p. 201). 
As for so-called true and false beliefs, they are simply relations 
among purely mental ideas ; and our ideas must agree with 
realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or 
be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and 
frustration (pp. 201 and 211). As this talk about ideas and 
the relations of ideas reverberates in our ears, we seem to be 
thrown backward into the days of Locke and the contempor- 
aneous French School ; we rub our eyes and look intently 
at this new-born child of Pragmatism, to make sure that we 
are not indeed dreaming. But as for facts, they are, essentially 
considered, neither true nor false ; they just simply are, and 
that is the end of it. 

Now, properly speaking, ideas, as ideas, are neither true nor 
false ; and so long as they remain mere ideas they cannot be 
spoken of as agreeing or disagreeing with so-called " reality." 
What is this process which, according to Pragmatism, happens 
to an idea, to convert it into a truth or a falsehood ? How 
does the idea become true, or get made into a truth ; and what 
is the precise nature of that event or process in which 
verification or the validating of truth consists ? Psychological 
analysis, quite irrespective of debated epistemological doctrines, 
pragmatist or otherwise, can give only one answer to such 
questions as these. Only judgments, and not ideas at all, are 
true or false ; and only by processes which link judgments 
together can man arrive at the verification or discrediting of 
his beliefs. Nor is there any truth of fact, any fact in reality 
for the human mind, unless psychological judgment, affirming 
or denying, is inherent somehow in that which, for the mind, 
is recognised as fact. For this reason it is that we are made 
familiar enough with the truth which is maintained in the self- 
contradictory but illumining jest that there are more false 
facts than false theories. Or, as one of the greatest men of 
science once said to the writer : "If you want an infallible 
expert testimony as to any (general) fact of science, you must 
never consult but one expert." 



THE CONFUSION OF PRAGMATISM 795 

And this is the very essential nature of judgment, the 
process or event which imparts the quality of truth or falsity 
to all our mental attitudes, that it affirms or denies relations, 
in assumed correspondence with facts, not customarily 
perhaps never between abstract conceptions so called, but 
between concrete things and other things, between actual 
events and other antecedent or contemporaneous happenings, 
between all sort of experiences that come as all experiences 
must come under some form of the puzzling and indefinite 
category called relation. When, then, we hear such astonish- 
ing statements as that Pragmatism is the attitude of " looking 
away from first things," and of " looking toward last things, 
fruits, consequences, facts " (p. 55) ; that " the true is only the 
expedient in the way of our thinking " (p. 58) ; that we are at 
liberty " to shuffle our perceptions of intrinsic relation and 
arrange them freely, inasmuch as the world itself is a kind of 
muddle or undifferentiated and indifferent plastic mass," 
we do not wonder that those who have respect for the condi- 
tions of true and safe judgment misunderstand Pragmatism 
and even attack it savagely. But this, too, is only its 
apparent notion of truth when stated in lively and picturesque 
form for popular acceptance and applause. 

More seriously considered, how does the pragmatist solve 
the problems of a theory of cognition, of the nature and 
guaranty of truth ? For an answer, when more precision is 
demanded, we have the same crude, indefinite, and unsatis- 
factory use of the terms practical, practical consequences, and 
practical differences. James tells the inquirer that all truths 
are only " instrumental " ; or to translate into a phrase which 
will make the contention more readily correspond to the correct 
psychological doctrine that our judgments are true if they are 
instruments of practical utility. Schiller says the truth is that 
which " works " ; and Dewey, it is that which "gives satisfac- 
tion." But now the questions recur in the same imperative 
form : Instrumental for what purposes, expedient for what 
ends ? that will work, when, and how, and to the achievement 



796 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of what result ? satisfaction, to whom, of what sort, and of 
what value ? 

Here, again, all this instruction as to the notion and 
verification of truths turns out to be, when questioned sharply 
and persistently, either acceptable as a long-ago acknowledged 
matter of course, or else so vague and indefinite as to be of 
absolutely no theoretical and what, for Pragmatism, is 
worse of no practical value. For example, the truths of pure 
mathematics, of the larger part of astronomical science and, 
indeed, of the most highly prized forms of the physical and 
natural sciences, have as little instrumental value, as feeble 
working power, and give as little satisfaction in Wall Street or 
on the cattle market of Chicago, as do the truths of Hegelism 
or the Vedantic philosophy. But if we say that all these 
scientific truths may some day be useful in working man's 
way to more truths, to a larger and loftier perspective of the 
several worlds, and that they do now, or if not now, may 
some time, afford satisfaction to the deeper feelings of man's 
soul, we are saying something with which no man, philosopher 
or clown, need have any quarrel. But these pragmatist 
answers to the problem of knowledge are all as valueless for 
definition of the notion of truth as they are impracticable 
for the discovery of any particular concrete truth. Indeed, 
they are not answers to the question which presses itself upon 
our attention. They are only vague remarks about tests of 
certain kinds of truths, and about the feelings with which 
man's rational nature greets what he believes to have 
truth. 

The answer to the deeper problems is, indeed, assumed by 
Pragmatism ; but it is substantially the same answer which 
rationalism gives, though disguised under numerous figures of 
speech, and decorated with much rhetoric that, however, fails 
quite to conceal its real nature from the critical observer. 
Nor anywhere, so far as I can discover, is there a consistent 
and clear-cut distinction made between the two related but not 
identical inquiries : What is the nature of truth, its " notion," 



THE CONFUSION OF PRAGMATISM 797 

so to say ? and, How do we test truths in order to assure us 
of their validity ? In reply to the second and much easier of 
these two questions we are given such commonplaces of logic 
and philosophy as the following : The only test of any probable 
truth is, what fits every part of life best, and combines with the 
collectivity of experiences' demands, nothing being omitted ? 
This is undoubtedly so, although, as furnishing a safe method 
for any of the particular sciences, theoretical or practical or 
experimental, it is a declaration as barren as it is indubitable. 
Again, the two inquiries are mixed up together and viewed 
in an emotional, rather than logical way, when, in answer to 
the question, " Whether we ought ever to deny ourselves the 
good we seem to get from holding any particular belief," we 
are told, No ; unless the " vital benefit " got from this belief 
proves " incompatible " with the " vital benefits yielded by 
other beliefs" (p. 77 f.)- For, "in other words, the greatest 
enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths." 
The net result of which exposition would seem to be that 
truth is a species of good, and that its test in the concrete 
instance is a species of internal consistency or compatibility. 
But what gives the pragmatist, or the rest of us, the right 
to assume the validity of any such test, and the duty of post- 
poning our individual satisfactions in the intervals of this test ? 
What kind of experience also is to be trusted for proof of this 
disastrous incompatibility between what seem to different 
minds, and to the same mind at different times, the clash 
of vital interests? 

When Pragmatism digs a little deeper in its effort to 
discover the nature and foundations of the notion of truth, 
it finds itself obliged to confess to a certain unity of the 
universe, or so-called real world. Indeed, the world is one 
in more than one meaning of the word "One" (p. 132 f.). 
And to this conclusion there can be no objection. But we 
must realise intellectually and not merely emotionally, as 
do the " Christian scientists " and other unscientific mystics, 
including the philosophical idealists what is meant by the 



798 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

universal unity. To this also, the rationalist should be, and 
probably is, the last man in the world to make objections. 
What, however, shall we assign as the cause of this growing 
conviction that the " World is One," as it is, in fact, more and 
more realised intellectually by all the progress of the particular 
sciences, with their manifold and sometimes seemingly con- 
tradictory truths, obtained by the varied methods of discovery 
and proof which they, severally, deem appropriate ? 

In answer to this inquiry we have to encounter what is 
really the most thoroughly and uncompromisingly rationalistic 
assumption which the history of philosophy has ever known. 
For one of the authors of the " Schiller-Dewey " theory of 
truth its nature and validating boldly affirms, under the name 
of " humanism," that, " to an unascertainable extent, our 
truths are man-made products too " (p. 242). When, then, 
we speak of an " independent " reality, we have in mind a 
mere unresisting v\r), which is only to be made over by us. 
Using the vulgar expression which Pragmatism allows itself, 
reality, as known by us, " has been already faked." No 
wonder that this doctrine has got for itself the name of a kind 
of revival of Kantianism ; for, in fact, Mr Schiller's theory 
of the way in which the oneness of the world is to be 
intellectualised differs no more essentially from that of Kant 
than Professor James's theory of the way man obtained his 
categories differs from the theory of Mr Herbert Spencer. But 
what has become of that rich and varied commerce between 
the human intellect and the concrete existences and relations 
of things in which the very nature and also the " veri-fication " 
of truths must consist? Judgments, however much they 
please our feeling or our fancy, cannot be affirmed to be true 
unless they are somehow compatible, in an order of thought, 
with that great world-order to which it is the striving of man's 
intellect to make itself correspond. In the name and words 
of so-called Pragmatism, then, we affirm : " Woe to him 
whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities 
follow in his experience ; they will lead him nowhere, or else 



THE CONFUSION OF PRAGMATISM 799 

make false connections." Now this has been from time 
immemorial the preaching of rationalism. 

But the staying qualities and nobler satisfactions of any 
attempt at philosophising depend chiefly upon the manner in 
which it deals with those conceptions that have value the 
principles, convictions, and ideals which reflective thinking 
discloses and criticises, within the spheres of morality and 
religion. Since Pragmatism claims to test all its doctrines 
by reference to the practical, and since the sphere of the 
practical is ethics, while religion, although not throughout 
identical with morality, is at many points from the roots 
upward so closely interwoven with it as to make the separa- 
tion of the two impossible, these doctrines should be especially 
clear, consistent, and convincing with regard to the 
philosophy of values. But it is just here that Pragmatism 
fails most conspicuously. Its unfortunate method, not simply 
as a matter of linguistic style but also in respect to the more 
important manner of ascertaining, expounding, and defending 
truths, when applied to subjects of ethics and the philosophy 
of religion, as a matter of course causes its real temper and 
more profound feelings to be misunderstood. And if it fre- 
quently is complained of, for treating of duty, and destiny, 
and God, and the experiences of religion, in a way to suggest 
flippancy or indifference, it generally has itself to blame. 

Fundamentally considered, however, Pragmatism turns 
out to be, with respect to its ethical and religious contentions 
and conclusions, either a pretty thorough-going agnosticism 
or a highly emotional idealism. With its claim that truth 
is " one species of the good," we have already expressed our 
hearty accord. In its revolt from the claim of materialism to 
find " the eternal forces " in " the lower and not in the higher 
forces," we heartily sympathise. In its contrary contention 
that " the notion of God, however inferior it may be to those 
mathematical notions so current in mechanical philosophy, 
has at least this practical superiority over them, that it 
guarantees an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved," 



800 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

we welcome the avowed pragmatist to our confession of an 
idealistic faith (p. 106). For indeed, "this need of an eternal 
moral order is one of the deepest needs of our breast." In 
respect of the world's salvation our faith, too, is optimistic ; but 
largely because, on the basis of past experiences and present 
facts, we also hold the " doctrine of meliorism." And then, 
although we have turned a few pages in the book which 
instructs us as to the attitude of Pragmatism, we have not 
forgotten what has already been said about the superiority 
of the faith in an "eternal moral world-order." But because 
we find nothing thorough, and nothing helpfully new, in so- 
called Pragmatism, we cling to the rationalistic method of 
intellectualising our idealism. And we are the more inclined 
to do this, because we are sadly disappointed and completely 
dissatisfied with the practical value of this pragmatist attempt 
at systematic philosophy. It gives us no perspective of the 
several worlds, nor food for the soul's profoundest needs ; 
neither does it teach us what " life honestly and deeply means," 
except in so far as, under some disguised form, it borrows and 
enlivens the assumptions of those rationalistic and idealistic 
systems it so scornfully derides. 

That great artist, Saint Gaudens, in one of his familiar 
letters, tells us how, when the experiences of life had made 
him despondent and agnostic, a " deep conviction came over 
him like a flash that, at the bottom of it all, whatever it is, the 
mystery must be beneficent." " It does not seem," he goes on 
to say, "as if the bottom of all were something malevolent ; 
and the thought was a great comfort." This germ of idealism, 
which perennially springs out of reason, it is the chief business 
and highest aim of philosophy to comprehend, to cultivate, to 
expound and justify by comparing it with all the other funda- 
mental facts and abiding growths of human experience. But 
the method of doing this must be rationalistic in the broader and 
truer meaning of the term. In a word, the aim of philosophy 
is to intellectualise and unify the conclusions derived from the 
totality of experience, in accordance with reason's abiding 



THE CONFUSION OF PRAGMATISM 801 

ideals. That this task cannot be fully accomplished by any 
individual, or within any one age of the world's evolution, nor 
satisfactorily expressed in terms of any exclusive school of 
philosophy, it would seem scarcely necessary to affirm. 

We gratefully acknowledge, therefore, the attempt of 
Pragmatism to increase the popular estimate of reflective 
thinking in its effort to satisfy the deeper needs of humanity 
for a more profound knowledge of Reality ; and as well, to 
enrich and ennoble in this way man's life of thought, feeling, 
and conduct. But we cannot grant its boastful claim to 
superiority in this respect. On the contrary, we are not sure 
that its unfortunate temper and style, its failure to understand 
who are the friends and who are the opponents of its own 
few good and sound positions, and its disregard of some of 
the most strenuous obligations which are laid upon every 
scheme of philosophy, will not more than avail and that 
speedily to defeat all its good intentions. And finally, we 
are " practically " certain that its disregard of a reasonable 
demand to criticise, first of all, its own underlying assumptions, 
will leave the confusion of which it so bitterly complains, 
even worse confounded. 

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD. 



VOL. VII. No. 4. 5] 



CHOICE. 
F. C. S. SCHILLER. 

ON almost every question the discussions of philosophers have 
become a byword. The most diametrically opposed views 
are advocated with conviction and enthusiasm as the only 
rational interpretation of the facts. As to the explanation of 
this extraordinary phenomenon, which radically distinguishes 
the results of philosophy from those of all the other sciences, 
opinions differ. But, without exploring all the ramifications 
of the problem, we may suggest that the psychology of 
philosophers has a good deal to do with it. As a class, they 
seem to be constitutionally incapable of seeing both sides of 
a problem at once. Or rather, having seen one side of it, 
this perception forms a distorting haze through which they 
interpret everything else into agreement with it. They are, 
moreover, invincibly averse from defining all their terms ; 
and all their terms are incurably ambiguous. Each party 
therefore reaffirms its own convictions in the sense congenial 
to it, and attributes to its opponents a sense of the terms at 
issue which makes it into nonsense. 

All these characteristics of philosophy are displayed most 
perfectly in the venerable controversy about Freedom and 
Responsibility, and exemplified by Mr Bertrand Russell's 
brilliant but one-sided paper on " Determinism and Morals " in 
last October's HIBBERT JOURNAL (vii. 1, pp. 113-121). 

This famous controversy originally grew up on the soil of 
ethics. It was started by the reply of Greek ingenuity to the 
Socratic attempt to make a science of morality. Socrates had 

802 



CHOICE 808 

contended that virtue was an "art " (which was not yet differ- 
entiated from a " science "), and that, therefore, what was virtu- 
ous must be a matter of knowledge. The analogy (like all such 
analogies) was good, but not perfect. If pressed beyond the 
limits of its applicability, it defeated its own purpose. Strictly 
interpreted, it implied an extreme intellectualism, which 
might be made to reduce it to absurdity. If all virtue was 
knowledge, i.e. if knowledge alone sufficed to determine virtue, 
then vice would be nothing but ignorance. Hence it followed 
both that it was impossible to know an act to be bad and yet 
do it, and that no one was to blame for doing what was bad, 
because he clearly did not know it was bad when he did it, 
and if he had known, would not have done it. Ignorance, 
however, was no sin ; the criminal ought not to be blamed and 
punished, but to be pitied and instructed. 

The logic of this reasoning is beautiful and unanswerable ; 
but it denies two of the great primary facts of moral psychology, 
viz. that men do what they know to be wrong, and that they 
know themselves to be responsible for such deeds. We see 
from Aristotle 1 that the Socratic school had no answer to 
give. They ought either to have questioned the intellectualistic 
assumption underlying their whole position, viz. that human 
action is always determined by reason alone, and never by 
deeper-lying instincts, or to have anticipated the audacious 
consistency of Samuel Butler of " Erewhon " fame, and to have 
developed a conception of culpable ignorance which would 
justify the punishment of disease and stupidity, and the 
medical treatment of vice. Instead of this, we find Aristotle 
lamely arguing that though the wilful wrongdoer appears to 
know what he does, he cannot be really conscious of the 
nature of his act ; while as for the suggestion that the bad man 
cannot help himself, because he cannot help being ignorant, 
it is really too extreme, because it would render virtue just 
as involuntary as vice. 

The corollary, then, that the two cases really were alike, 

1 Nicomachean Ethics, iii., v. 18 foil. 



804 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that virtue and vice were both involuntary, had not yet 
been drawn in Aristotle's time. But we can see at once that 
it was bound to be the next move in the dialectical game, 
and that with it full-blown Determinism would be sprung 
upon the moral world, which has been haunted by it ever since. 
But Determinism has also had another, later and more reput- 
able, parentage in the needs of science and the legitimate desire 
to forecast events, and it is probably as a methodological 
principle of scientific calculation that it nowadays inspires 
affection in most of its adherents. 

But they cannot thereby disavow its anti-moral origin, nor 
lay the spectre of the conflict between ethics and Determinism ; 
and they do their cause no good by the tactics they pursue 
towards the ethical implications of their doctrine. It would 
be far more prudent and satisfactory to try to dissociate the 
scientific postulate from the exculpation of the bad man. The 
difficulty is a real one and must be faced. It is not met by 
setting up a counter-bogey to terrify the plain man on either 
side, and to dilate on the horrors of an indeterminate world 
in which events have no connexions and nobody can be held 
responsible for anything he does. For it is not true that these 
are the legitimate implications of the plain man's working faith 
in his " freedom " and responsibility, nor is it true that (at any 
rate for the past thirty years) libertarian philosophers have held 
a doctrine that could fairly be said to lead to such absurdities. 
An adroit conspiracy of silence may contrive to prevent the 
skeleton of Determinism from rattling in its cupboard, and 
to ignore the real case for libertarianism, while parading a 
bogus bogey to frighten children and old women ; but the very 
reiteration of old arguments betrays the fact that they continue 
to be unconvincing to the common sense of men. 

All that such tactics can achieve is to render it periodically 
necessary to re-state the ancient and unsolved difficulty into 
which Determinism plunges ethics. Mr Russell has not stated 
it, and has thereby reduced his whole argument to an ingenious 
piece of special pleading. 



CHOICE 805 

Like many great things, the difficulty is extremely simple. 
If the world is fully determined, there cannot be any alterna- 
tives in it. All events are inevitable and necessitated, and could 
not conceivably be otherwise. This is as true of human actions 
as of anything else. The crime is inevitable ; and so also is 
the punishment and the illusion that both or either could have 
been altered by human agency. It is really meaningless, there- 
fore, to speculate whether either could have been different. 
That we do so is merely a sign of our (inevitable) stupidity. 
For no man can help doing what he does. 

But does he, after all, do what he does ? How can he, 
meaning thereby a distinct centre whence actions radiate into 
the world, do anything at all ? Has not the very notion of such 
a centre, of such agency, become a sheer illusion ? For consider : 
every act of every man is unambiguously and unalterably con- 
ditioned by its antecedents ; and if we trace them back, we can 
nowhere cut short the causal chains in which all things are caught 
and fixed. Our thought, therefore, about the antecedents of 
human action cannot arrest itself at a point where a human 
being still exists ; it passes inevitably on from the human and 
the moral to the natural and non-moral. Unless each agent is 
himself eternal and this hypothesis neither science nor ordinary 
Determinism would tolerate he is the helpless product of an 
inexorable fate, bound to an inevitable past by unbreakable 
chains, and dangling more impotently on the hook of Time 
than a worm that is free at least to choose the manner of his 
wriggle. 

This, then, is the real difficulty. Determinism has never 
answered it. It is vain to protest against the plain proof of 
the coincidence of Determinism and Fatalism ; it is vain to 
plead that " self-determination " leaves us " free " to do what 
we wilt. For it does not give us an alternative ; and the 
"self" which is said to determine our acts must always be 
traced back on its predestined course to its vanishing point. 
To imagine, therefore, that Determinism, after annihilating 
the moral agent, remains compatible with morality, simply 



806 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

means that the logical implications of the doctrine have not 
been fully explored. 

That so acute a logician as Mr Russell should have failed 
to see this, and should have been beguiled into attempting 
futile distinctions between actions right "objectively" and 
"subjectively," and the kinds of "possibility" attaching to an 
illusory choice between unreal alternatives (pp. 116-8), is 
indeed astonishing. Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact 
that his language is ambiguous. " There certainly is a sense," 
he tells us, "in which it is possible to choose any one of a 
number of different actions which we think of"; and again, 
" when several alternative actions present themselves, it is 
certain that we can both do which we choose and choose 
which we will" (p. 118). Does the word "choose" here 
designate the function of a determined or of an undetermined 
will ? If the former, it leaves the alternatives illusory and does 
not remove the difficulty ; if the latter, it is a covert repudia- 
tion of Determinism. There is little doubt that the latter is 
the way in which common sense would naturally understand 
Mr Russell's phrases ; but can Determinism do so ? Must it 
not deny that " choices " mean alternatives ; must it not 
contend that the structure of the universe has from all time 
determined that we shall be deluded with feelings of free 
choices, although simultaneously it is impossible not to think 
that the alternatives are unreal, and that the only possible 
issue of our " choice " is predestined and inevitable ? 

Determinists, then, who think their creed compatible with 
morality, have not realised how far it carries them. The charge 
against it is not merely that it fails to do full justice to the 
ethical fact of responsibility, but that it utterly annihilates the 
moral agent. The notions of agency, power, choice and 
possibility, and of all the beliefs, words and deeds into which 
these notions enter, lose all meaning. It is not, indeed, quite 
true that a consistent Determinism must be speechless, but it 
is clear that its vocabulary must be very seriously curtailed. 
Words like " if," " perhaps," " can," " may," " ought," " might 



CHOICE 807 

have been," "either . . . or," and their equivalents, would 
have to be conscientiously expunged from it, and a monot- 
onous "must" would have to take their place. And if, in 
addition, one reflects that, though all this testimony to the 
reality of alternatives in life and language would be known 
to be illusory, we should yet be unable to escape from the 
illusion, one begins to wonder where the superior "ration- 
ality" of the deterministic universe comes in. Rationalistic 
notions of "reason" are among the curiosities of human 
psychology; but this deterministic notion of a determined 
world, suffering from an ineluctable illusion that it was free, 
would seem to reduce the world to a vast lunatic asylum, in 
which the patients were not only victims of incurable delusions, 
but also excruciated by a knowledge of the fact. 

Determinism, therefore, cannot be said to make good its 
claim to rationality and morality. But it does not, of course, 
follow that Indeterminism is any better. The true lesson of 
the situation might be that of Scepticism. The alternative 
views might both be invincible in attack and impotent in 
defence, and might thus together prove the weakness of 
human reason. Still this, too, would be a conclusion to be 
avoided if we can. It would be better to get the human 
reason out of the pitfall into which it has fallen. Is it not 
possible to effect a compromise between the conflicting 
claims ? 

Determinism, clearly, cannot and ought not to give up its 
status as a scientific principle. We cannot renounce the right 
of looking for a determinate connexion between events, for 
that is the deepest postulate of scientific method. But we 
need not claim for it absolute and ultimate validity. It is 
enough if we are entitled always to treat events as if they 
were determined, and if that treatment is true enough to the 
facts to be useful. 

Ethics similarly cannot surrender the belief that alterna- 
tives to the evil-doing it condemns were really possible. But 
it need not contend that habit is no force; that the acts of 



808 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

moral beings are incalculable, and that every one is eternally 
free to stultify his past life and present character. 1 

Beyond this point our progress will depend on a closer 
analysis of the conception of choice. This conception, we 
have seen, does not mean the same for the libertarian as for 
the determinist. For the libertarian, choice is really what it 
seems to be and what it is experienced as. That is to say, it 
is real, and really decides between alternatives that are really 
possible until the decision is taken. For the determinist the 
alternatives are only apparent. One of them (only we do 
not know which) is predestined to be taken. The " choice " 
is only the adoption of that one. Both views, however, give 
a consistent and intelligible account of " choice," and to decide 
between them would be to decide the question. 

If we decide in favour of the libertarian view, no serious 
obstacles remain in the path of a philosophy of freedom. For 
if choice is real, if there really are alternatives, it follows that 
in choosing between them we are exhibiting our power as 
real agents, real causes and initiators of new departures in 
the flow of cosmic change. We thereby prove the existence 
of free causes. For neither the objection that our doctrine 
involves a negation of "causes," nor the assumption that 
"causes" must be fully determined, can any longer be 
sustained. The conception of cause has entered the world 
of science from nowhere but from our own direct experience ; 
and if we are free causes that are not incalculable, then free 
causes may be assumed elsewhere without subverting science. 

If, on the other hand, we decide that the alternatives in 
choice are mere illusion, we cut away the root of the whole 
belief in freedom ; we shall find nothing else in the world 
that will force upon us so preposterous a notion. 

But before we decide, we should at least attempt an un- 
prejudiced consideration of the psychology of choice. Acts 

1 For both these points, cf. Essay xviii. in my Studies in Humanism, and an 
article on "Freedom and Responsibility" in the Oxford and Cambridge Review, 
No. 2. 



CHOICE 809 

of choice are surely about the most vivid, real and important 
experiences of our lives ; and as from their very nature it seems 
to be impossible that we should fail to attend to them, the 
verdict of consciousness as to their nature seems particularly 
worthy of credence. What, then, do we find ? It will hardly 
be disputed that the alternatives in choice feel real ; that we 
feel " free " in choosing in a way distinct from the feeling 
which accompanies all our other actions, voluntary and 
involuntary. Why, then, should not the determinist be called 
upon to give some good and sufficient reason for his belief 
that these choices are not really free ? Surely the burden of 
proof lies on those who allege that what seems to be real is 
not really so. 

The determinist, however, at this point seems singularly 
lacking in resource. Instead of adducing independent reasons, 
he simply recoils upon his a priori prejudice. To choose 
freely is to choose without a motive, and therefore irrationally 
and incalculably. And as this would reinstate chaos, the 
alternatives cannot be real. 

This whole argument is extremely abstract. It takes no 
account of the psychical experiences, and overlooks an impor- 
tant logical alternative. For it assumes that indeterminate 
choice is the same as motiveless choice. But this is neither 
logically nor psychologically correct. It may be hard to 
choose, not from lack of motives, but from excess ; the sus- 
pense of the will may be due not to apathy and lack of interest, 
but to the clash of conflicting desires. It is surely a strange 
confusion which lumps together two such different cases. To 
have no cogent motive for deciding for either, and to be dis- 
tracted by strong but contrary impulses, are surely different 
as conceptions, different as experiences, and different in their 
results. No real ass would starve, like JBuridan's, between two 
equal bales of hay ; but even an American reporter would 
hardly induce him to express a preference as between two equal 
pictures of the hay. Psychologically, too, the experiences are 
different. The mind of the man who has no motive is a blank ; 



810 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that of the man who has conflicting motives is a tumult. The 
act of the former seems capricious and incalculable ; that of the 
latter seems reasonable and perfectly calculable. Whichever 
way his decision falls, his friends (who think they know him) 
will say it was just like him ; that it might have been fore- 
seen, and, in short, was thoroughly rational and calculable. 
And herein they will not be wholly wrong ; for the alternatives 
between which the choice decides in such a case are plainly 
rooted in his nature, and consonant therewith. 

All of this possibly the determinist will have to admit; 
but he will persist in asking What decides between the alter- 
natives ? Is not the answer " nothing " ? Hence, is not the 
choice indeterminate, and therefore irrational ? Has not the 
irrationality been sublimated, and not eliminated ? 

The reply again must take the form of beseeching the 
determinist to look at the facts and to distinguish different 
cases. Is the kind of indetermination to which the facts point 
such a very terrible affair ? Does it amount to a total sub- 
version of the cosmic order ? Does it imply an irruption of 
unbridled and unlimited forces ? Is it effectively the same 
as the total indetermination which would make a mock of 
Science ? 

Surely it is nothing of the kind. It is an indetermination 
of a very definite and specific kind ; and to declaim against it 
because it has formidable congeners is like alleging that it is 
perilous to keep a domestic cat because a pet tiger would be 
sure to devastate the household ; and Mr Russell's argument 
that one per cent, of indetermination would do one per cent, 
of the mischief of total indetermination is like arguing that 
because the tiger would kill ten men in one day, the cat would 
kill one man in ten days. Surely the determinist should deign 
to note that the essence of the indetermination is, that it is 
taken to subsist between alternatives which are separately 
calculable and individually rational. When they are combined 
and become relevant to the same situation, it is intelligible 
that more calculation will be needed ; but this is not to say 



CHOICE 811 

that no calculation will be possible. The calculating instinct 
of Science, therefore, is not thwarted, but satisfied with an 
abundance of opportunity. The practical inconvenience to 
Science, therefore, of this sort of indetermination is nil, as Mr 
Russell himself has finally to admit (p. 121). 

Science, of course, always makes the simplest assumptions 
first. Hence it will always first try to calculate the behaviour 
of things on the assumption that they have no alternatives. 
But, after all, if that assumption does not work and in dealing 
with ourselves it seems to fail why should not Science con- 
template a more complex possibility, and inquire what must 
be the nature of a reality which contains real alternatives and 
a modicum of calculable indetermination ? 

The question is not unanswerable, nor is the answer un- 
intelligible. It is merely needful to introduce a slight 
modification into the conception of reality. The assumption 
of a rigid "block" universe, as William James calls it, 
incapable of the slightest free play of its parts, must be 
abandoned. In its stead we may conceive a reality that is still 
plastic and not yet set, with reactions that have not yet grown 
rigid and unalterable. If this plasticity be real, the future of 
the world will not be quite determined, but, within the limits 
of its plasticity, it will be capable of new and alternative 
developments. At various points there will occur reactions 
which are variable, because the nature of the real has not yet 
finally settled down into one of the alternatives ; and where 
such reals are conscious of their nature, they will feel that it 
leaves them partly indeterminate and free. 

That such a conception of reality is not unreasonable may 
be inferred from the fact that it would seem to be demanded 
by the fact of individual variation and by any belief in the 
ultimate reality of evolution. For if the evolution is to be 
real, and not merely illusory, it must mean a real growth in 
that in respect to which the world is said to be evolving. And 
such growth would be impossible if reality were really rigid. 

There are, moreover, a good many facts which would bear 



812 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

this interpretation. The habits of things do not seem to be 
quite fixed. This is particularly evident in organic nature, 
and may be directly experienced by us in the formation of 
human habits. Incompletely formed habits act variably, and 
their reactions cannot be predicted with exactitude. Now, 
from their very nature, moral habits must always in general 
be found among the incompletely formed habits. For in 
proportion as they grow fixed and automatic, they tend to pass 
out of the sphere of moral valuation. A being whose nature 
is so firmly set upon doing the right thing that no temptation 
to do wrong ever troubles him is no longer, per se, a moral 
being. His virtue has become an irresistible instinct, and he 
can no longer help doing right. He is supra-moral, that is, 
moral only as an exemplar of the possibilities of moral progress, 
to be emulated by those whose moral nature still feels tempta- 
tion's sting. Conversely, a being for whom the possibility of 
doing right has been atrophied by the growth of evil habits is 
really infra-moral. For moral suasion is wasted on him, and 
no longer strikes a responsive chord. But it is in a being in 
whom the lower instincts and moral principles are still con- 
tending for the mastery that there is real plasticity of habit, 
real contingency of conduct. In such a being alone are 
choices real, and not foregone conclusions. For his nature is 
such that each of the moral alternatives makes a real appeal to 
him, though to different sides of him. But in such a being the 
reality of choice and of freedom are one thing and the same, 
viz. an incident in the development of his moral nature. 
Hence the existence of moral beings is a standing protest 
against the assumption of a rigid reality out of which the 
fallacy of Determinism naturally grows. 

F. C. S. SCHILLER. 

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD. 



A NEW DEVELOPMENT IN OLD 
TESTAMENT CRITICISM. 

PROFESSOR BERNARD D. EERDMANS, 

Leiden. 

THOUGH every scholar will admit that many critical questions 
affecting the Old Testament are not yet settled, it is generally 
accepted by those who are not bound by dogmatic theories 
that the main lines of Old Testament criticism may be traced 
with approximate certainty. I believed so myself for many 
years, but I no longer hold that opinion. 

The time in which the now dominating school of criticism 
arose was prior to the many discoveries made in Assyria, 
Babylonia, Egypt, and Syria, and the critics did not understand 
so clearly as we do, that the Oriental conception of life has 
always been essentially different from that of the West. The 
theory of evolution was then prevailing in science and phil- 
osophy, and its influence was doubtless felt in critical and 
historical studies on Old Testament subjects. One looked for 
the line of evolution in the literary and religious history of 
Israel, and was indeed happy enough to trace it. The many 
contradictions, which even the ordinary careful reader of the 
Bible was often able to discover, gave the ardent scholar 
the means for constructing a new building out of the scattered 
pieces of Hebrew literature. 

In erecting this building scholars did not always see the 
great difficulties of their position and the traps that were to 
be avoided. The Old Testament has been studied for 

813 



814 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

centuries by scholars who were Christians, and regarded it as 
a part of the Bible, the holy book of the Christian religion. 
For centuries, too, the aim of Old Testament studies was not 
historical knowledge, but edification. Narratives and texts 
were explained by the scholars in the same way as the painters 
pictured Bible scenes. The Western ideas of their own time 
were supposed to have existed in the heads of Bible writers, 
just as the painters copied Western scenery and Western people 
in illustrating the Bible. The hymns of ancient Israel were 
sung by the Protestants of the seventeenth century, and 
they had not a moment's doubt but that the feelings they 
combined with those hymns would correspond to the feelings 
of the Israelitish poet. 

The influence of a method that was practised by gener- 
ations cannot be effaced at one sweep, especially not where 
religious ideas are concerned conservatism and religion being 
usually on the best terms with one another. So we understand 
that even scholars who possessed a profound knowledge of 
Oriental history could not always escape the power of the 
traditional interpretation of Old Testament texts, and yielded 
to the influence of Western thinking and feeling in explaining 
Oriental thoughts. In this way the prophets of Israel were 
represented as not so very different from liberal religious 
thinkers of our age. 

I regard as one of the most striking instances of the power of 
Western thinking over profound knowledge the interpretation 
that the late Professor Robertson Smith gave of the first chapters 
of Hosea. According to him, Hosea married a profligate wife. 
Three children were born to him, but his wife left him never- 
theless. Hosea's affection was not killed. He brought her 
back to his house and kept her in seclusion. Thinking about 
the sadness of his experiences, Hosea was struck by the idea 
that Israel did not behave in a better way towards Jahve. 
This explanation is accepted by numerous scholars. " It has 
the great advantage of supplying a psychological key to the 
conception of Israel as the spouse of Jahve " (Enc. BibL, 2123). 



NEW DEVELOPMENT IN O.T. CRITICISM 815 

If we accept this interpretation, we have to assume that the 
command of Jahve to Hosea (i. 2), " Go, take unto thee a wife 
of whoredom and children of whoredom," never was a reality 
for Hosea, but merely the reflex of his psychological impres- 
sions of later years. This psychological explanation is of pure 
Western origin. It encounters the difficulty that the wife 
Hosea is keeping in seclusion (iii. 3) is different from Corner, 
the wife mentioned in i. 3. Nevertheless, scholars are willing 
to overlook this difficulty, because their Western mind is 
charmed by the psychological explanation. Now, nearly every 
page of the Old Testament teaches us that prophecy and 
revelation of divine commands were realities to the prophets 
and their people. The prophet was not a man who spoke 
from his own psychological experience ; personally, he had 
nothing to do with what he spoke, for he did not speak 
himself, but the Spirit of God spoke through him. The 
Spirit came and went ; and if the Spirit did not touch 
him, he was not able to speak. And so it is until this 
very day in Oriental life, where the marabouts and living 
saints are the representatives of the prophets of the Old 
Testament. Present Oriental life teaches us still the essen- 
tially different appreciation of sexual morals, and the Old 
Testament itself sufficiently proves that we have to interpret 
Hosea i. just as it reads. 

The criticism of the Pentateuch is of central importance 
for the literary history of Israel. Here the line of Western 
thinking has been of great influence upon the critical results. 
The different sources of the Pentateuch, the Elohistic work, 
the Jahvistic work, Deuteronomy, and the Priestly code were 
regarded as a kind of books that were published, each of these 
works being a complete story of a part of the history of the 
people. Kuenen supposes that the works of the Jahvist and 
the Elohist appeared in a second edition in Juda. They were 
originally written in N. Israel. As they did not suit the 
people of Juda, a new edition was given which agreed with 
the Judaean ideas. The Priestly code is also supposed to be 



816 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

an edition of the history of Israel written according to the 
ideas that prevailed in the Exile. 

Lately this theory has been attacked by Gunkel, who 
pointed out that this pure literary criticism was not able to 
explain the problems of the Pentateuch. He drew attention 
to the fact that some of the narratives were doubtless part of 
old oral traditions, and supposed that these traditions were 
collected. But the collectors of these traditions became, again, 
very like the authors of the older criticism; and, after all, Gunkel 
walks mainly on the same path as Kuenen and Wellhausen. 

At the same time, the ethics of the Pentateuch and 
prophets were interpreted on the basis of Western thought. 
If we say "thou shalt not steal," we understand by those 
words that it is forbidden to steal from anybody whomsoever. 
It was not observed that the Israelites understood by them 
"it is forbidden to steal from your brother," their ethical 
feeling being limited to their nation and the friends of their 
nation. So it seemed impossible to ascribe the ethical contents 
of the Decalogue to the time of Moses. The Decalogue could 
only be the reflex of the high ethical standard reached by 
the prophets of the eighth century. They were regarded as 
persons of the utmost importance in the line of evolution. 
Their ethical ideas were embodied in the Thora, and the Book 
of the Covenant was supposed to be another reflection of the 
same stage in the evolution. 

The ritual and cultus was largely regarded as a product of 
the priestly hierarchy. The laws dealing with offerings and 
ritual, therefore, were supposed to be recent. In the pre- 
exilic period of Israel's religion there was no place for all the 
details of the laws of the Priestly code. This period was the 
times of freedom when compared to the post-exilic times. 

The religious contents of the Pentateuch were interpreted 
by the critics under the influence of the old exegesis of the 
Christian Churches, though they would have denied that they 
were bound in any way by conservative ideas. Elohim was 
explained to designate the God of Israel. The Elohist was a 



NEW DEVELOPMENT IN O.T. CRITICISM 817 

monotheist like the Jahvist. He preferred, for some reason 
unknown to us, to write Elohim instead of Jahve. He had 
his own theory about the name Jahve, and held the view that 
this name was unknown to the patriarchs. The few places 
where Elohim could not be explained as a designation of the 
God of Israel were considered to be of little importance, and 
generally left by themselves. 

The idiom of the various sources was carefully studied. 
Long lists of substantives and verbs, etc. were made, and the 
idiom was thought a factor of great critical value ; and it 
seemed to be quite forgotten that the few Hebrew texts we 
possess must be only a small part of the Hebrew literature, 
that we have not any thorough knowledge about the Hebrew 
as it was spoken in the pre-exilic time, not even of the way 
in which the books were written. 

In short, the Pentateuchal criticism was in every respect 
a product of Western thought, Western logic, and Western 
combinations, which too often forgot that the history of 
religions and the living Orient were contradictory to the 
principles of the critical theories. 

We have only to look at the results of the recent critical 
inquiries of the scholars belonging to the school of Graf- 
Kuenen-Wellhausen in order to see that a thorough appli- 
cation of the critical theories leads to highly improbable results. 
Words, half-verses, quarters, eighth and sixteenth parts of 
verses, belonging to different sources, are combined in the 
most various ways. The number of the Jahvistic and Elohistic 
writers has lately been steadily increasing ; the characters of 
several alphabets are needed for designating the intricate 
combinations the numerous redactors have been able to make. 
A single word very often is sufficient argument for ascribing 
part of a verse to a different writer, even if it appears only a 
few times in Old Testament literature. The analysis of the 
sources is carried out to the bitter end. By the acuteness of 
scholars, contradictions and parallels are discovered in chapters 
and verses of the most harmless and harmonious appearance. 

VOL. VII. No. 4. 52 



818 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Former critics studied the texts with their own eyes, now 
critics seem to use microscopes. 

I wish not to be misunderstood. These remarks do not 
deny the necessity of a critical inquiry about the origin of the 
books of the Old Testament. I am fully aware that tradition 
does not give a sufficient explanation of the literary problems 
of the Pentateuch and the other books, and I am not a 
defender of the dogmas of the Churches against the attacks 
of the " so-called higher criticism." Even the reader of a good 
translation of the Pentateuch is able to see that the Penta- 
teuch cannot be the product of the pen of one man. What I 
wish to emphasize is, that present Old Testament criticism has 
to reform itself. 

The history of religions has shown that ritual is inherent 
to every form of cultus. Even the most simple sanctuaries 
have their ritual, for where there is a priest there is ritual, and 
the belief that a mistake in ritual makes the offering null 
and void. 

The code of Hammurabi proved that the high ethical 
standard of the Book of the Covenant does not represent an 
ethical and religious life of rare and special character, only 
arrived at by the great prophets of the eighth century B.C. 
The same principles of mercy towards widows and orphans, 
of justice towards the poor, of social feeling, the same love for 
righteousness, was found in these old laws and in the incanta- 
tions of the old Babylonians. A complete parallel to the 
Decalogue is to be found on one of the tablets of the Shurpu- 
incantations, and the religious hymns of early Babylonian ages 
have been found to be of the same character as the confessions 
of sin in the Psalms of Israel. 

The study of Oriental folklore has shown that the customs 
of the present Orient sometimes are a most useful illustration 
of Old Testament feasts and usages, which have proved to be 
of an origin quite other than was generally supposed. 
The old animistic view of life is the background of many 
things which were once regarded as a highly developed ethical 



NEW DEVELOPMENT IN O.T. CRITICISM 819 

and religious feeling. The prescript not to seethe a kid in its 
mother's milk was explained as an instance of the tender 
feeling of the Israelites, until it became evident that it had 
nothing to do with such feelings, but was part of customs 
originating in animism. In the same way, the feast of 
Mazzoth, the commandment not wholly to reap the corners 
of the field, Pesach, the day of atonement, and many other 
customs, are to be placed in a different light from that in 
which they usually appear. 

The stele of Merenptah was discovered ; and by its state- 
ment that Merenptah devastated the fields of Israel in the 
fifth year of his reign, the theory of the Exodus in his reign 
was at once upset. 

Travellers studied the population of Palestine and northern 
Arabia. It became evident that the narratives of Genesis 
about the patriarchs demanded a careful ethnological interpre- 
tation. And the patriarchs, who were always regarded as 
nomads, without any knowledge of agriculture, proved to be 
farmers, who possessed herds and flocks. By this simple 
remark the aspect of the oldest history of Israel was changed 
at once, and it became evident that agricultural customs and 
agricultural laws might be of a much earlier date than the 
monarchical period of Israel's history. 

It seems unjust towards Old Testament critics to speak 
about these things in general terms without proving the 
soundness of my remarks more in detail. I wish to 
emphasize that I will not in the least underestimate the great 
merits of Old Testament scholars who studied in years which 
had not brought to light the numerous religious Babylonian 
texts, which had not seen the archaeological discoveries of 
recent expeditions, which did not know the results of ethno- 
logical research. In order to prove the soundness of my plea 
for reform, however, I may be permitted to enter into parti- 
culars about one of the main lines of criticism. 

It is generally accepted that we find in the Pentateuch a 
Jahvistic and an Elohistic work. Since the days of Astruc, 



820 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

scholars have learned to acknowledge that the names Jahve and 
Elohim are guides in the critical inquiry into the sources of the 
Pentateuch. In both works Jahve and Elohim are the desig- 
nation of the God of Israel. According to the Elohist, the 
name Jahve was not revealed until the time of Moses (Exod. iii.). 

Now it has been often noticed that the use of Elohim, 
within the work of the Elohist, is not limited to Genesis and 
Exod. i.-iii. Elohim is also used Exod. xiii. 17-19, xiv. 19, 
xviii., xix. 3 and 17, 19, xx. 1, 18-21 ; Num. xxi. 5, xxii., xxiii. 
4, 27, xxiv. 2 ; Jos. xxii. 33, xxiv. 1, 26. The Elohistic work 
must be of pre-exilic origin, and is reckoned among the pro- 
phetical writings ; yet, without a single exception, all the 
pre-exilic prophets call the God of Israel Jahve, and one 
looks in vain in the Proto-Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Nahum, 
Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel for Elohim as 
a designation of the national God of Israel. Therefore it seems 
strange that a prophetical writer would avoid Jahve not only 
in Genesis, but also in Exodus and Numbers, and even in 
Judges and Samuel. 

Elohim appears once in Amos iv. 11, and this place shows 
the remarkable fact that Elohim meant for Amos " gods," the 
world of superhuman beings. In this world Jahve was one of 
the gods. " I have overthrown you, as Elohim overthrew 
Sodom and Gomorrah," says Jahve. For these words there is 
but one possible explanation, viz. that Amos does not know 
that Jahve has destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. In that case 
the text would have run, " I have overthrown you, as I over- 
threw Sodom and Gomorrah." This interpretation is confirmed 
by Gen. xix. 24 : " Then Jahve rained upon Sodom and upon 
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jahve, from heaven." 
Jahve rained from Jahve is an impossible construction. 
Originally the verb "rained" must have had another subject, and 
this can only have been Elohim, Jahve being also (Micah v. 6) 
a name for heaven, as is explained by the gloss " from heaven " 
in our text. The narrative of the destruction of Sodom and 
Gomorrah did not have its present form in the time of Amos, 



NEW DEVELOPMENT IN O.T. CRITICISM 821 

but evidently mentioned the Elohim as the destroyers of the 
cities. Among these Elohim, Jahve represented the clouds. 

The same thing occurs in the narrative of Isaac's blessing 
(Gen. xxvii.), though the right interpretation of this chapter 
generally is overlooked through the influence of the critical 
analysis. This chapter is one of those which show us a scene 
of Oriental life in the most realistic way. The soul of man is a 
reality, it is the element of life that does not die when the 
body dies. The soul of a hungry man becomes weak ; the 
soul of a man whose hunger is satiated is vigorous; to eat 
things one likes to eat is a refreshment for the soul. This 
conception of life we meet in Gen. xxvii. 3 seq. Esau must 
go out to the field and take venison " and make me savoury 
meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat ; that 
my soul may bless thee before I die." The soul that became 
refreshed and strong by the savoury dish will be able to give 
a good and powerful blessing. The blessing is also a reality ; 
once spoken, it will be fulfilled. 

Critical analysis has discovered many contradictions in 
this chapter, and explained the chapter as a composition of 
a Jahvistic and an Elohistic narrative. Elohim is used in 
verse 28, and verses 7 and 27 write Jahve. In verse 23 it is 
said, "and he discerned him not .... so he blessed him"; 
and verse 27 again, " and he came near and .... he blessed 
him." There seemed to be no reasonable doubt about the 
composite character of the chapter. In looking for further 
starting-points for the analysis, further parallels and contradic- 
tions were easily discovered, and it was believed that the skins 
of kids, which Jacob put upon his hands, belonged to one 
version, and the goodly raiment of Esau, by which he disguised 
himself, to another. In this way it was supposed that verse 23 
belonged to another version than verse 27, and it was accepted 
that the blessing of verse 23 was the parallel of verse 27, and 
the final blessing which Isaac gave to his son. In that case, 
however, Isaac would have given blessing before taking the 
savoury dish. We have seen that it is one of the naive and 



822 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

realistic features that Isaac wishes to refresh his soul before 
giving the blessing. So it is evident that the narrative is 
spoiled by the analysis, which is quite unnecessary, because 
the blessing of verse 23 only seems to be a duplicate of the 
blessing of verse 27 by wrong interpretation of the word. 
The word " bless " is used in bidding welcome and in taking 
leave. The Old Testament contains numerous instances of 
this meaning of the word. In verse 20 Jacob is hesitating on 
the threshold whether he will approach his father or not. He 
is not allowed to do so before his father has bidden him 
welcome. That is the Oriental custom during all ages up to 
the present day. Isaac is not able to decide whether it is 
really Esau who is addressing him, and before bidding him 
welcome he wishes to assure himself that he is not misled. 
He did not discern that it was really Jacob, and "he bade 
him welcome." This translation is to be found in commentaries 
which were not yet engrossed in the chase for contradictions. 

Verse 27 writes Jahve, verse 28 Elohim. Notwithstanding 
this, it is impossible to ascribe the verses 27 and 28 to different 
sources. " And he came near, and kissed him : and he smelled 
the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the 
smell of my son is as the smell of a field which Jahve has 
blessed. And Elohim give thee of the dew of heaven, and of 
the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine." Here 
the smelling field is the introduction to the blessing, verse 28. 
The blessing is invoked by the smell of the raiment, that 
reminded Isaac of the smell of a field moistened by the rain. 
Evidently Jahve is here the god of rain and clouds. The 
field he has blessed is smelling as gardens are smelling after 
a thunderstorm. If verses 27 and 28 cannot be separated, 
it is obvious that we have in these verses a second instance 
of a narrative which uses Jahve and Elohim at the same time. 
Elohim means here the world of the gods, the superhuman 
beings ; Jahve is one of these gods. In ancient Hebrew texts, 
plural and singular might be written in the same way, so it was 
easy enough for the later monotheistic priests and Israelitic 



NEW DEVELOPMENT IN O.T. CRITICISM 823 

scholars to interpret the narrative according to their 
monotheistic ideas. 

These two instances are sufficient to show that the Jahvistic 
and Elohistic theories are not to be applied to Gen. xviii., xix., 
and Gen. xxvii., for in none of these works is there place for 
a narrative using Jahve and Elohim at the same time. 

A third instance is Gen. xxviii. 11-22, xxxv. 7. The 
narrative about Jacob's dream at Luz, verse 20, uses Elohim 
and Jahve at the same time. Jacob saw a number of Elohim. 
xxviii. 12 says " angels of Elohim," but xxxv. 7 reads Elohim, 
and proves that the tradition originally alluded to real gods. 
One of these is Jahve, who stood near the sleeping Jacob and 
spoke unto him. Afterwards Jacob promised, " if Elohim will 
be with me .... and will give me bread to eat .... then 
Jahve shall be my God." From this it is apparent that 
Elohim means the superhuman world of the gods. If he is 
blessed by this unseen world, he will ascribe it to Jahve and 
worship him. The primitive character of this verse again is 
spoiled by the critical analysis, that feels obliged to ascribe the 
part of the verse containing Elohim to an Elohistic source, 
and the other part to a Jahvistic source, without being able to 
restore either of the supposed original narratives. 

The instances of a promiscuous use of Jahve and Elohim 
might be multiplied by references to Gen. xvi. (where the 
name Isma-el proves that the original version of the narrative 
used also El, otherwise the name would have been Isma-jah), 
to Gen. iv., ix. 18-27, xxii., xxix., xxx., xxxi., xxxix., to Gen. 
XL 1-9 (where the name Bab-el also proves that in the original 
story El was found). It would, however, demand too much 
space if I would enter into full details about these chapters. I 
may be permitted to refer those who are especially interested 
in critical questions to the Alttestamentliche Studien, i. 

The oldest tradition of Israel was polytheistic. People 
believed in the existence of many unseen superhuman powers, 
and among these gods the national God, Jahve, the god of rain, 
storm and clouds, thunder and lightning, was only one. But 



824 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

not all that happened to men was done by Jahve. There is a 
place in the religion of these Israelites for the protectors of 
the house, the Elohim, that are mentioned in Exod. xxi. 6. To 
these Elohim the slave must be brought when he wishes to 
stay in his master's house after six years' service. The plurality 
of these divine beings we find also mentioned, Lev. xxiv. 15-16. 
" Whosoever curseth his Elohim shall bear his sin, whosoever 
curseth the name Jahve he shall surely be put to death." The 
critics ascribe this word to P. 1, who is supposed to have 
written in the sixth century B.C. It is apparent that it must 
be much older, and belong to the pre-deuteronomic time, as 
theoretical monotheism was not yet the basis of Israelitic law. 

In the post-deuteronomic period the old polytheistic 
traditions were interpreted in a monotheistic sense. This was 
very easy, because Elohim was used in these times as the 
designation of one god, the God of Israel. This is evident 
from the so-called Elohistic psalms. The plural and singular 
of the verb sometimes were written in the same way. In that 
case the monotheistic interpretation of a polytheistic narrative 
not even needed correction of the text. In other instances 
narratives that were too clearly polytheistic were corrected into 
Jahvistic ones, as for instance the story of the destruction of 
Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Tower of Babel. 

If we try to penetrate into the religious conceptions of the 
old Israelites by the aid of the history of religions, archaeology, 
and folklore, we see that many of the old narratives appear 
under a perfectly different light, and we understand that 
in many instances the critical analysis has obscured the right 
explanation of the beautiful stories of Genesis. Then it 
becomes evident that many laws must be of much older date 
than is generally accepted. The Book of the Covenant, with 
its references to the Elohim of the house, cannot be regarded 
as a reflex of the thoughts of the prophets of the eighth 
century B.C. There is no reason why the commandments of 
the Decalogue would not be the oldest document of Israelitic 
legislation. If we bear in mind that their present form is 



NEW DEVELOPMENT IN O.T. CRITICISM 825 

longer than the original one, and assume that a shorter form 
once has existed from which the two different versions in 
Exodus and Deuteronomy originated, it becomes even 
necessary to assume that the social and religious command- 
ments which this shorter form contained were given in the 
desert. 

We have already observed that the circle within which 
ethical commandments were to be obeyed was a narrow one. 
The ethical feeling originally only regards the members of the 
same family. As the family became a tribe, the circle became 
wider. If certain tribes came into close alliance with one 
another, life would have been impossible if the circle of 
brotherhood were not at the same time enlarged. Until this 
day it is a merit amongst the Arabs to steal from a tribe with 
which they are not allied. The Israelite tribes who gathered 
round Sinai were united there in one mighty alliance of 
tribes protected by Jahve, the God who had rescued them 
from the Egyptians. From this historical fact it follows that 
the members of the various tribes had to regard the members 
of other tribes as their brethren. So the commandments, 
thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not 
commit adultery, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt 
not covet thy neighbour's house, became a social necessity. 
No Israelite ever understood these commandments as we 
Christians have understood them ; and, without any scruples, 
they have killed the enemies, stolen their possessions, taken 
their wives, etc., and they have done so in the name of their 
national God Jahve, who had given these commandments. 
The critical analysis regards the Decalogue as a product of 
the religious thought of the seventh or even of the sixth 
century B.C., because our own ethical feeling has not been 
sufficiently kept separated from the ethical conceptions of old 
Israel. 

To sum up in conclusion, I believe that an explanation of 
the text from the standpoint of old Israelitic thought will 
lead to a reform in Old Testament criticism. We have to 



826 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

realize that it is a difficult thing to penetrate into the view 
of life held by a people that existed long ago, and whose 
descendants are so different from us even at the present day. 
They had a logic different from ours. Perhaps we may 
say that they had no logic at all. They did not understand 
what we call knowledge and science ; they drew no line be- 
tween things possible and impossible ; they were not educated 
by lessons in history, and did not care for future ideals 
in the same way as we do ; they lived just the same kind 
of life as their descendants in the Orient are living now. 
Owing to these great differences we shall not always succeed 
in penetrating into their way of thinking and feeling. But 
if we try, many critical questions will be seen under a 
different light. 

B. D. EERDMANS. 



IS NATURE GOOD? A CONVERSATION. 
PROFESSOR JOHN DEWEY. 

A GROUP of people are scattered near one another, on the sands 
of an ocean beach ; wraps, baskets, etc., testify to a day's outing. 
Above the hum of the varied conversations are heard the mock 
sobs of one of the party. 

Various voices. What's the matter, Eaton ? 

Eaton. Matter enough. I was watching a beautiful wave ; 
its lines were perfect ; at its crest, the light glinting through 
its infinitely varied and delicate curves of foam made a picture 
more ravishing than any dream. And now it has gone ; it 
will never come back. So I weep. 

Grimes. That's right, Eaton ; give it to them. Of course 
well-fed and well-read persons with their possessions of wealth 
and of knowledge both gained at the expense of others finally 
get bored ; then they wax sentimental over their boredom and 
are worried about " Nature " and its relation to life. Not 
everybody takes it out that way, of course ; some take motor 
cars and champagne for that tired feeling. But the rest 
those who aren't in that class financially, or who consider 
themselves too refined for that kind of relief seek a new 
sensation in speculating why that brute old world out there 
will not stand for what you call spiritual and ideal values for 
short, r your egotisms. 

The fact is that the whole discussion is only a symptom 
of the leisure class disease. If you had to work to the limit 
and beyond to keep soul and body together, and, more than 

827 



828 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that, to keep alive the soul of your family in its body, you 
would know the difference between your artificial problems 
and the genuine problem of life. Your philosophic problems 
about the relation of "the universe to moral and spiritual 
good " exist only in the sentimentalism that generates them. 
The genuine question is why social arrangements will not 
permit the amply sufficient body of natural resources to 
sustain all men and women in security and decent comfort, 
with a margin for the cultivation of their human instincts of 
sociability, love of knowledge and of art. 

As I read Plato, philosophy began with some sense of its 
essentially political basis and mission a recognition that its 
problems were those of the organisation of a just social order. 
But it soon got lost in dreams of another world ; and even 
those of you philosophers who pride yourselves on being so 
advanced that you no longer believe in " another world." are 
still living and thinking with reference to it. You may not 
call it supernatural ; but when you talk about a realm of 
spiritual or ideal values in general, and ask about its relation 
to Nature in general, you have only changed the labels on the 
bottles, not the contents in them. For what makes anything 
transcendental that is, in common language, supernatural 
is simply and only aloofness from practical affairs which 
affairs in their ultimate analysis are the business of making a 
living. 

Eaton. Yes ; Grimes has about hit off the point of my little 
parable in one of its aspects at least. In matters of daily 
life you say a man is "off," more or less insane, when he 
deliberately goes on looking for a certain kind of result from 
conditions which he has already found to be such that they 
cannot possibly yield it. If he keeps on looking, and then 
goes about mourning because stage money won't buy beef- 
steaks, or because he cannot keep himself warm by burning 
the sea-sands here, you dismiss him as a fool or a hysteric. If 
you would condescend to reason with him at all, you would 
tell him to look for the conditions that will yield the results ; 



IS NATURE GOOD? 829 

to occupy himself with some of the countless goods of life for 
which by intelligently directed search adequate means may 
be found. 

Well, before lunch, Moore was reiterating the old tale. 
Modern science has completely transformed our conceptions of 
Nature. It has stripped the universe bare not only of all the 
moral values which it wore alike to antique pagan and to our 
medieval ancestors, but also of any regard, any preference, for 
such values. They are mere incidents, transitory accidents, 
in her everlasting redistribution of matter in motion ; like the 
rise and fall of the wave I lament, or like a single musical note 
that a screeching, rumbling railway train might happen to 
emit. This is a one-sided view ; but suppose it were all so, 
what is the moral? Surely, to change our standpoint, our 
angle of vision ; to stop looking for results among conditions 
that we know will not yield them ; to turn our gaze to the 
goods, the values that exist actually and indubitably in 
experience; and consider by what natural conditions these 
particular values may be strengthened and widened. 

Insist if you please that Nature as a whole does not stand 
for good as a whole. Then, in heaven's name, just because 
good is both so plural (so " numerous ") and so partial, bend 
your energies of intelligence and of effort to selecting the 
specific plural and partial natural conditions which will at least 
render values that we do have more secure and more exten- 
sive. Any other course is the way of madness ; it is the way 
of the spoilt child who cries at the seashore because the 
waves do not stand still, and who cries even more frantically 
in the mountains because the hills do not melt and flow. 

But no. Moore and his school will not have it so : we 
must " go back of the returns." All this science, after all, is 
a mode of knowledge. Examine knowledge itself and find it 
implies a complete all-inclusive intelligence ; and then find 
(by taking another tack) that intelligence involves sentiency, 
feeling, and also will. Hence your very physical science, if 
you will only criticise it, examine it, shows that its object, 



830 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

mechanical nature, is itself an included and superseded element 
in an all-embracing spiritual and ideal whole. And there 
you are. 

Well, I do not now insist that all this is mere dialectic 
prestidigitation. No ; accept it ; let it go at its face value. 
But what of it ? Is any value more concretely and securely 
in life than it was before? Does this perfect intelligence 
enable us to correct one single mis-step, one paltry error, here 
and now? Does this perfect all-inclusive goodness serve to 
heal one disease ? Does it rectify one transgression ? Does it 
even give the slightest inkling of how to go to work at any 
of these things ? No ; it just tells you : Never mind, for they 
are already eternally corrected, eternally healed in the eternal 
consciousness which alone is really Real. Stop : there is one 
evil, one pain, which the doctrine mitigates the hysteric 
sentimentalism which is troubled because the universe as a 
whole does not sustain good as a whole. But that is the 
only thing it alters. The "pathetic fallacy" of Ruskin 
magnified to the nth power is the motif of modern idealism. 

Moore. Certainly nobody will accuse Eaton of tender- 
mindedness except in his logic, which, as certainly, is not 
tough-minded. His excitement, however, convinces me that 
he has at least an inkling that he is begging the question ; 
and like the true pragmatist that he is, is trying to prevent 
by action (to wit, his flood of speech) his false logic from 
becoming articulate to him. The question being whether 
the values we seem to apprehend, the purposes we entertain, 
the goods we possess, are anything more than transitory 
waves, Eaton meets it by saying : " Oh, of course, they are 
waves ; but don't think about that just sit down hard on 
the wave or get another wave to buttress it with I " No 
wonder he recommends action instead of thinking! Men 
have tried this method before, as a counsel of desperation or 
as cynical pessimism. But it remained for contemporary 
pragmatism to label the drowning of sorrow in the intoxi- 
cation of thoughtless action, the highest achievement of 



IS NATURE GOOD? 831 

philosophic method, and to preach wilful restlessness as a 
doctrine of hope and illumination. Meantime, I prefer to 
be tender-minded in my attitude toward Reality, and make 
that attitude more reasonable by a tough-minded logic. 

Eaton. I am willing to be quiet long enough for you to 
translate your metaphor into logic, and show how I have 
begged the question. 

Moore. It is plain enough. You bid us turn to the 
cultivation, the nurture, of certain values in human life. But 
the question is whether these are or are not values. And 
that is a question of their relation to the Universe to Reality. 
If Reality substantiates them, then indeed they are values ; 
if it mocks and flouts them as it surely does if what 
mechanical science calls Nature be ultimate and absolute 
then they are not values. You and your kind are really the 
sentimentalists, because you are sheer subjectivists. You say : 
Accept the dream as real; do not question about it; add a 
little iridescence to its fog and extend it till it obscure even 
more of Reality than it naturally does, and all is well ! 1 say : 
Perhaps the dream is no dream but an intimation of the 
solidest and most ultimate of all realities ; and a thorough 
examination of what the positivist, the materialist, accepts as 
solid, namely, science, reveals as its own aim, standard, and 
presupposition that Reality is one all-exhaustive spiritual 
Being. 

Eaton. This is about the way I thought my begging of 
the question would turn out. You insist upon translating my 
position into terms of your own ; I am not then surprised to 
hear that it would be a begging of the question for you to 
hold my views. My point is precisely that it is only as long 
as you take the position that some Reality beyond some 
metaphysical or transcendental reality is necessary to sub- 
stantiate empirical values that you can even discuss whether 
the latter are genuine or illusions. Drop the presupposition 
which you read into everything I say, the idea that the reality 
of things as they are is dependent upon something beyond and 



832 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

behind, and the facts of the case just stare you in the eyes : 
Goods are, a multitude of them but, unfortunately, evils 
also are ; and all grades, pretty much, of both. Not the 
contrast and relation of experience in toto to something beyond 
experience drives men to religion and then to philosophy ; but 
the contrast within experience of the better and the worse, and 
the consequent problem of how to substantiate the former and 
reduce the latter. Until you set up the notion of a trans- 
cendental reality at large, you cannot even raise the question 
of whether goods and evils are or only seem to be. The 
trouble and the joy, the good and the evil, is that they are ; 
the hope is that they may be regulated, guided, increased in 
one direction and minimised in another. Instead of neglecting 
thought, we (I mean the pragmatists) exalt it, because we say 
that intelligent discrimination of means and ends is the sole 
final resource in this problem of all problems, the control of 
the factors of good and ill in life. We say, indeed, not merely 
that that is what intelligence does, but rather what it is. 

Historically, it is quite possible to show how under certain 
social conditions this human and practical problem of the 
relation of good and intelligence generated the notion of the 
transcendental good and the pure reason. As Grimes reminded 
us, Plato 

Moore. Yes, and Protagoras don't forget him ; for 
unfortunately we know both the origin and the consequences 
of your doctrine that being and seeming are the same. We 
know quite well that pure empiricism leads to the identification 
of being and seeming, and that is just why every deeply 
moral and religious soul from the time of Plato and Aristotle 
to the present has insisted upon a transcendent reality. 

Eaton. Personally I don't need an absolute to enable me 
to distinguish between, say, the good of kindness and the 
evil of slander, or the good of health and the evil of vale- 
tudinarianism. In experience, things bear their own specific 
characters. Nor has the absolute idealist as yet answered the 
question of how the absolute reality enables him to distinguish 



IS NATURE GOOD? 833 

between being and seeming in one single concrete case. The 
trouble is that for him all Being is on the other side of 
experience, and all experience is seeming. 

Grimes. I think I heard you mention history. I wish 
both of you would drop dialectics and go to history. You 
would find history to be a struggle for existence for bread, 
for a roof, for protected and nourished offspring. You would 
find history a picture of the masses always going under just 
missing in the struggle, because others have captured the con- 
trol of natural resources, which in themselves, if not as benign 
as the eighteenth century imagine, are at least abundantly 
ample for the needs of all. But because of the monopolisa- 
tion of Nature by a few persons, most men and women only 
stick their heads above the welter just enough to catch a 
glimpse of better things, then to be shoved down and under. 
The only problem of the relation of Nature to human good 
which is real is the economic problem of the exploitation of 
natural resources in the equal interests of all, instead of in 
the unequal interests of a class. The problem you two men 
are discussing has no existence and never had any outside 
of the heads of a few metaphysicians. The latter would never 
have amounted to anything, would never have had any career 
at all, had not shrewd monopolists or tyrants (with the skill 
that characterises them) have seen that these speculations 
about reality and a transcendental world could be distilled 
into opiates and distributed among the masses to make them 
less rebellious. That, if you would know, Eaton, is the real 
historic origin of the ideal world beyond. When you realise 
that, you will perceive that the pragmatists are only half-way 
over. You will see that practical questions are practical, 
and are not to be solved merely by having a theory about 
theory, different from the traditional one which is all your 
pragmatism comes to. 

Moore. If you mean that your own crass Philistinism is 
all that pragmatism comes to, I fancy you are about right. 
Forget that the only end of action is to bring about an 

VOL. VII. No. 4. 53 



834 THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 

approximation to the complete inclusive consciousness ; make, 
as the pragmatists do, consciousness a means to action, and 
one form of external activity is just as good as another. Art, 
religion, all the generous reaches of science which do not show 
up immediately in the factory these things become meaning- 
less, and all that remains is that hard and dry satisfaction 
of economic wants which is Grimes' ideal. 

Grimes. An ideal which exists, by the way, only in your 
imagination. I know of no more convincing proof of the 
futile irrelevancy of idealism than the damning way in which 
it narrows the content of actual daily life to the minds of those 
who uphold it. T sometimes think I am the only true idealist. 
If the conditions of an equitable and ample physical existence 
for all were once secured, I, for one, have no fears as to the 
bloom and harvest of art and science, and all the "higher" 
things of leisure. Life is interesting enough for me ; give it a 
show for all. 

Arthur. I find myself in a peculiar position in respect to 
this discussion. An analysis of what is involved in this 
peculiarity may throw some light on the points at issue, for 
I have to believe that analysis and definition of what exists 
is the essential matter both in resolution of doubts and in 
steps at reform. For brevity, not from conceit, I will put the 
peculiarity to which I refer in a personal form. I do not 
believe for a moment in some different Reality beyond and 
behind Nature. I do not believe that a manipulation of the 
logical implications of science can give results which are to be 
put in the place of those which science herself yields in her 
direct application. I accept Nature as something which is, 
not seems, and Science as her faithful transcript. Yet because 
1 believe these things, not in spite of them, I believe in the 
existence of purpose and of good. How Eaton can believe 
that fulfilment and the increasing realisation of purpose can 
exist in human consciousness unless they first exist in the 
world which is revealed in that consciousness is as much beyond 
me as how Moore can believe that a manipulation of the method 



IS NATURE GOOD? 835 

of knowledge can yield considerations of a totally different 
order from those directly obtained by use of the method. If 
purpose and fulfilment exist as natural goods, then, and only 
then, can consciousness itself be a fulfilment of Nature, and be 
also a natural good. Any other view is inexplicable to sound 
thinking save, historically, as a product of modern political 
individualism and literary romanticism which have combined 
to produce that idealistic philosophy according to which the 
mind in knowing the universe creates it. 

The view that purpose and realisation are profoundly 
natural, and that consciousness or, if you will, experience- 
is itself a culmination and climax of Nature, is not a new view. 
Formulated by Aristotle, it has always persisted wherever the 
traditions of sound thinking have not been obscured by 
romanticism. The modern scientific doctrine of evolution 
confirms and specifies the metaphysical insight of Aristotle. 
This doctrine sets forth in detail, and in verified detail, as a 
genuine characteristic of existence, the tendency toward cumu- 
lative results, the definite trend of things toward culmination 
and achievement. It describes the universe as possessing, in 
terms of and by right of its own subject-matter (not as an 
addition of subsequent reflection), differences of value and 
importance differences, moreover, that exercise selective influ- 
ence upon the course of things, that is to say, genuinely 
determine the events that occur. It tells us that consciousness 
itself is such a cumulative and culminating natural event. 
Hence it is relevant to the world in which it dwells, and its 
determinations of value are not arbitrary, not obiter dicta, but 
descriptions of Nature herself. 

Recall the words of Spencer which Moore quoted this morn- 
ing : " There is no pleasure in the consciousness of being an 
infinitesimal bubble on a globe that is infinitesimal compared 
with the totality of things. Those on whom the unpitying 
rush of changes inflicts sufferings which are often without 
remedy, find no consolation in the thought that they are at the 
mercy of blind forces, which cause indifferently now the 



836 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

destruction of a sun and now the death of an animalcule. 
Contemplation of a universe which is with conceivable begin- 
ning or end and without intelligible purpose, yields no satis- 
faction." I am naive enough to believe that the only question 
is whether the object of our " consciousness," of our " thought," 
of our " contemplation," is or is not as the quotation states it 
to be. If the statement is correct, pragmatism, like subjectiv- 
ism (of which I suspect it is only a variation, putting emphasis 
upon will instead of idea), is an invitation to close our eyes to 
what is in order to encourage the delusion that things are 
other than they are. But the case is not so desperate. 
Speaking dogmatically, the account given of the universe is just 
not true. And the doctrine of evolution of which Spencer 
professedly made so much is the evidence. A universe de- 
scribable in evolutionary terms is a universe which shows, not 
indeed design, but tendency and purpose ; which exhibits 
achievement, not indeed of a single end, but of a multiplicity 
of natural goods at whose apex is consciousness. No account 
of the universe in terms merely of the redistribution of matter 
in motion is complete, no matter how true as far as it goes, 
for it ignores the cardinal fact that the character of matter in 
motion and of its redistribution is such as cumulatively to 
achieve ends to have effected the world of values we know. 
Deny this and you deny evolution ; admit it and you admit 
purpose in the only objective that is, the only intelligible- 
sense of that term. I do not say that in addition to the 
mechanism there are other ideal causes or factors which inter- 
vene. I only insist that the whole story be told, that the 
character of the mechanism be noted namely, that it is 
such as to produce and sustain good in a multiplicity of forms. 
Mechanism is the mechanism of achieving results. To ignore 
this is to refuse to open our eyes to the total aspects of 
existence. 

Among these multiple natural goods, I repeat, is con- 
sciousness itself. One of the ends in which Nature genuinely 
terminates is just awareness of itself of its processes and ends. 



IS NATURE GOOD? 887 

For note the implication as to why consciousness is a natural 
good : not because it is cut off and exists in isolation, nor yet 
because we may, pragmatically, cut off and cultivate certain 
values which have no existence beyond it ; but because it is 
good that things should be known in their own characters. 
And this view carries with it a precious result : to know things 
as they are is to know them as culminating in consciousness ; 
it is to know that the universe genuinely achieves and 
maintains its own self-manifestation. 

A final word as to the bearing of this view upon Grimes' 
position. To conceive of human history as a scene of struggle 
of classes for domination, a struggle caused by love of power 
or greed for gain, is the very mythology of the emotions. 
What we call history is largely non-human, but so far as it is 
human, it is dominated by intelligence : history is the history 
of increasing consciousness. Not that intelligence is actually 
sovereign in life, but that at least it is sovereign over stupidity, 
error, and ignorance. The acknowledgment of things as they 
are that is the causal source of every step in progress. Our 
present system of industry is not the product of greed or 
tyrannic lust of power, but of physical science giving the 
mastery over the mechanism of Nature's energy. If the 
existing system is ever displaced, it will be displaced not by 
good intentions and vague sentiments, but by a more extensive 
insight into Nature's secrets. 

Modern sentimentalism is revolted at the frank naturalism 
of Aristotle in saying that some are slaves by nature and 
others free by nature. But let socialism come to-morrow and 
somebody not anybody, but somebody will be managing its 
machinery and somebody else will be managed by the 
machinery. I do not wonder that my socialistic friends 
always imagine themselves active in the first capacity perhaps 
by way of compensation for doing all of the imagining and 
none of the executive management at present. But those 
who are managed, who are controlled, deserve at least a 
moment's attention. Would you not at once agree that if 



838 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

there is any justice at all in these positions of relative in- 
feriority and superiority, it is because those who are capable 
by insight deserve to rule, and those who are incapable on 
account of ignorance, deserve to be ruled ? If so, how do you 
differ, save verbally, from Aristotle ? 

Or do you think that all that men want in order to be men 
is to have their bellies filled, with assurance of constant plenty 
and without too much antecedent labour ? No ; believe me, 
Grimes, men are men, and hence their aspiration is for the 
divine even when they know it not ; their desire is for the 
ruling element, for intelligence. Till they achieve that they 
will still be discontented, rebellious, unruly and hence ruled 
shuffle your social cards as much as you may. 

Grimes (after shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, 
finally says) : There is one thing I like about Arthur ; he is 
frank. He comes out with what you all in your hearts really 
believe theory, supreme and sublime. All is to the good 
in this best of all possible worlds, if only some one be defining 
and classifying and syllogising, according to the lines already 
laid down. Aristotle's God of pure intelligence (as he well 
knew) was the glorification of leisure ; and Arthur's point of 
view, if Arthur but knew it, is as much the intellectual 
snobbery of a leisure class economy, as the luxury and display 
he condemns are its material snobbery. There is really 
nothing more to be said. 

Moore. To get back into the game which Grimes despises. 
Doesn't Arthur practically say that the universe is good 
because it culminates in intelligence, and that intelligence 
is good because it perceives that the universe culminates in 
itself? And, on this theory, are ignorance and error, and 
consequent evil, any less genuine achievements of Nature 
than intelligence and good ? And on what basis does he call 
by the titles of achievement and end that which at best is an 
infinitesimally fragmentary and transitory episode ? I said 
Eaton begged the question. Arthur seems to regard it as 
proof of a superior intelligence (one which realistically takes 



IS NATURE GOOD? 839 

things as they are) to beg the question. What is this Nature, 
this universe in which evil is as stubborn a fact as good, in 
which good is constantly destroyed by the very power which 
produces it, in which there resides a temporary bird of passage 
consciousness doomed to ultimate extinction what is such 
a Nature (all that Arthur offers us) save the problem, the 
contradiction originally in question ? A complacent optimism 
may gloss over its intrinsic self-contradictions, but a more 
serious mind is forced to go behind and beyond this scene to 
a permanent good which includes and transcends goods 
defeated and hopes suborned. Not because idealists have 
refused to note the facts as they are, but precisely because 
Nature is, on its face, such a scene as Arthur describes, 
idealists have always held that it is but Appearance, and 
have attempted to mount through it to Reality. 

Stair. I had not thought to say anything. My attitude 
is so different from that of any one of you that it seemed 
unnecessary to inject another varying opinion where already 
disagreement reigns. But when Arthur was speaking, I felt 
that perhaps this disagreement exists precisely because the 
solvent word had not been uttered. For, at bottom, all of 
you agree with Arthur, and that is the cause of your dis- 
agreement with him and one another. You have agreed to 
make reason, intellect in some sense, the final umpire. But 
reason, intellect, is the principle of analysis, of division, of 
discord. When I appeal to feeling as the ultimate organ of 
unity, and hence of truth, you smile courteously ; say or 
think mysticism ; and the case for you is dismissed. Words 
like feeling, sensation, immediate appreciation, self-communi- 
cation of Being, I must indeed use when I try to tell the 
truth I see. But I well know how inadequate the words are. 
And why? Because language is the chosen tool of intelli- 
gence, and hence inevitably bewrayeth the truth it would 
convey. But remember that words are but symbols, and that 
intelligence must dwell in the realm of symbols, and you realise 
a way out. These words, sensation, feeling, etc., as I utter 



840 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

them are but invitations to woo you to put yourselves into 
the one attitude that reveals truth an attitude of direct vision. 

The beatific vision ? Yes, and No. No, if you mean 
something rare, extreme, almost abnormal. Yes, if you mean 
the commonest and most convincing, the only convincing self- 
impartation of the ultimate good in the scale of goods ; the 
vision of blessedness in God. For this doctrine is empirical ; 
mysticism is the heart of all positive empiricism, of all 
empiricism which is not more interested in denying rationalism 
than in asserting itself. The mystical experience marks every 
man's realisation of the supremacy of good, and hence measures 
the distance that separates him from pure materialism. And 
as the unmitigated materialist is the rarest of creatures, and 
the man with faith in an unseen good the commonest, every 
man is a mystic and the most so in his best moments. 

What an idle contradiction that Moore and Arthur should 
try to adduce proofs of the supremacy of ideal values in the 
universe ! The sole possible proof is the proof that actually 
exists the direct unhindered realisation of those values. For 
each value brings with it of necessity its own depth of being. 
Let the pride of intellect and the pride of will cease their 
clamour, and in the silences Being speaks its own final word, 
not an argument or external ground of belief, but the self- 
impartation of itself to the soul. Who are the prophets and 
teachers of the ages ? Those who have been accessible at the 
greatest depths to these communications. 

Grimes. I suppose that poverty and possibly disease are 
specially competent ministers to the spiritual vision ? The 
moral is obvious. Economic changes are purely irrelevant, 
because purely material and external. Indeed, upon the whole, 
efforts at reform are undesirable, for they distract attention 
from the fact that the final thing, the vision of good, is totally 
disconnected from external circumstance. I do not say, Stair, 
you personally believe this ; but is not such a quietism the 
logical conclusion of all mysticism ? 

Stair. This is not so true as to say that in your efforts at 



IS NATURE GOOD? 841 

reform you are really inspired by the divine vision of justice ; 
and that this mystic vision and not the mere increase of 
quantity of eatables and drinkables is your animating motive. 

Grimes. Well, to my mind this whole affair of mystical 
values and experiences comes down to a simple straight-away 
proposition. The submerged masses do not occupy themselves 
with such questions as those you are discussing. They haven't 
the time even to consider whether they want to consider them. 
Nor does the occasional free citizen who even now exists a 
sporadic reminder and prophecy of ultimate democracy- 
bother himself about the relation of the cosmos to value. 
Why ? Not from mystic insight any more than from meta- 
physical proof; but because he has so many other interests 
that are worth while. His friends, his vocation and avocations, 
his books, his music, his club these things engage him and 
they reward him. To multiply such men with such interests 
that is the genuine problem, I repeat ; and it is a problem 
to be solved only through an economic and material re- 
distribution. 

Eaton. Gladly, Stair, do all of us absolve ourselves from 
the responsibility of having to create the goods that life call 
it God or Nature or Chance provides. But we cannot, if we 
would, absolve ourselves from responsibility for maintaining 
and extending these goods when they have happened. To find 
it very wonderful as Arthur does that intelligence perceives 
values as they are is trivial, for it is only an elaborate way of 
saying that they have happened. To invite us, ceasing 
struggle and effort, to commune with Being through the 
moments of insight and joy that life provides, is to bid us to 
self-indulgence to enjoyment at the expense of those upon 
whom the burden of conducting life's affairs falls. For even 
the mystics still need to eat and drink, be clothed and housed, 
and somebody must do these unmystic things. And to ignore 
others in the interest of our own perfection is not conducive to 
genuine unity of Being. 

Intelligence is, indeed, as you say, discrimination, dis- 



842 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

tinction. But why? Because we have to act in order to 
keep secure, amid the moving flux of circumstance, some 
slight but precious good that Nature has bestowed ; and 
because, in order to act successfully, we must act after con- 
scious selection after discrimination of means and ends. Of 
course, all goods arrive, as Arthur says, as natural results, 
but so do all bads, and all grades of good and bad. To label 
the results that occur culminations, achievements, and then 
argue to a quasi-moral constitution of Nature because she 
effects such results, is to employ a logic which applies to the 
life- cycle of the germ that, in achieving itself, kills man with 
malaria, as well as to the process of human life that in reach- 
ing its fulness cuts short the germ-fulfilment. It is putting 
the cart before the horse to say that because Nature is so 
constituted as to produce results of all types of value, there- 
fore Nature is actuated by regard for differences of value. 
Nature, till it produces a being who strives and who 
thinks in order that he may strive more effectively, does not 
know whether it cares more for justice or for cruelty, more 
for the ravenous wolf-like competition of the struggle for 
existence, or for the improvements incidentally introduced 
through that struggle. Literally it has no mind of its 
own. Nor would the mere introduction of a consciousness 
that pictured indifferently the scene out of which conscious- 
ness developed, add one iota of reason for attributing eulo- 
gistically to Nature regard for value. But when the sentient 
organism, having experienced natural values, good and bad, 
begins to select, to prefer, and to make battle for its prefer- 
ence ; and in order that it may make the most gallant fight 
possible for its aims, picks out and gathers together in percep- 
tion and thought what is favourable to its aims and what 
hostile, then and there Nature has at last achieved significant 
regard for good. And this is the same thing as the birth of 
intelligence. For the holding of the end in view and the 
selecting and organising out of the natural flux, on the basis 
of this end, conditions that are means, is intelligence. Not, 



IS NATURE GOOD? 843 

then, when Nature produces health or efficiency or com- 
plexity does Nature exhibit regard for value, but only when 
it produces a living organism that has settled preferences 
and endeavours. The mere happening of complexity, health, 
adjustment, is all that Nature effects, as rightly called accident 
as purpose. But when Nature produces an intelligence ah, 
then, indeed Nature has achieved something. Not, however, 
because this intelligence impartially pictures the nature which 
has produced it, but because in human consciousness Nature 
becomes genuinely partial. Because in consciousness an end is 
preferred, is selected for maintenance, and because intelligence 
pictures not a world, just as it is in toto, but images forth the 
conditions and obstacles of the continued maintenance of the 
selected good. For in an experience where values are demon- 
strably precarious, an intelligence which is not a principle of 
emphasis and valuation, an intelligence which should define, 
describe, and classify merely for the sake of knowledge, is a 
principle of stupidity and catastrophe. 

As for Grimes, it is indeed true that problems are solved 
only where they arise namely, in action, in the adjustments 
of behaviour. But, for good or for evil, they can be solved 
there only with method ; and ultimately method is intelligence, 
and intelligence is method. The larger, the more human, the 
less technical the problem of practice, the more open-eyed and 
wide-viewing must be the corresponding method. I do not 
say that all things that have been called philosophy participate 
in this method ; I do say, however, that a catholic and far- 
sighted theory of the adjustment of the conflicting factors 
of life is whatever it be called philosophy. And unless 
technical philosophy is to go the way of dogmatic theology, 
it must loyally identify itself with such a view of its own aim 
and destiny. 

JOHN DEWEY. 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 



LE CULTE DBS SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 
AU MAGHREB. 

PROFESSOR E. MONTET, D.D., 

Geneva. 

LE culte des saints est 1'un des faits le plus caracteristiques de 
F Islam dans FAfrique du nord. 

II est a remarquer que, dans cette partie du continent 
africain, le culte des saints va en augmentant de Fest a Fouest, 
en sorte que c'est au Maroc que nous trouvons le plus riche 
d^veloppement de ce phdnomene religieux. II semble que 
plus Fon s'eloigne, dans la direction du couchant, de FArabie, la 
patrie primitive du monoth&sme arabe, plus le Mahometisme 
ddgenere entre les mains des Berb&res, qui forment la majorite 
de la population du Maghreb. 

Dans le present article, nous pr^senterons sur cet inter- 
essant sujet quelques observations, puise'es en partie dans les 
travaux publies sur le culte des saints, 1 en partie aussi dans 
Fexp^rience personnelle que nous avons acquise de F Islam 
africain. 

Origines du culte des saints. La principale cause a laquelle 
nous devons faire remonter Forigine du culte des saints au 

1 I. Goldziher, Muhammedanisctie Studien, t. ii. p. 275-378 (die Heiligen- 
verehrung im Islam), Halle, 1 890. E. Doutte, Notes sur V Islam maghribin : les 
Marabouts, Paris, 1900. C. Trumelet, Les saints de I' Islam : les saints du Tell, 
Paris, 1881. A. Moulieras, Le Maroc inconnu, 2 vol., Paris, 1895-1899. C. de 
Foucauld, Reconnaissance au Maroc, Paris, 1888. E. Doutte, Merrakech, Paris, 
1905. A cette liste des ouvrages les plus importants, il y a lieu d'ajouter 
les relations des principaux voyageurs qui ont parcouru, visite ou etudie 
1'Afrique du nord. 

844 



LES SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 845 

Maghreb, se trouve dans la persistance des superstitions, 
heritage du paganisme primitif des Berb&res. 

A vrai dire, nous sommes mal renseigne's sur la religion 
des Berb&res avant I'lslam. Mais, d'une part, les analogies 
que nous relevons dans le Mahomdtisme oriental, ou certains 
saints sont incontestablement les successeurs de divinite's 
du paganisme gr^co-romain, d'autre part, ce que plusieurs 
anciens auteurs, Procope en particulier, nous racontent de 
1'anthropolatrie des Berbres et de la profonde veneration 
qu'ils temoignaient & leurs sorciers et aux prophetesses qui 
ddvoilaient 1'avenir, nous inclinent a croire que le culte des 
saints, au Maghreb, est essentiellement d'origine paienne. 

La reaction religieuse, provoque'e sur le sol africain, au 
XVP siecle, par les victoires des peuples chretiens en Espagne 
et dans 1'Afrique du nord, a contribue dans une large mesure 
a 1'accroissement du culte des saints. II semble qu'aux 
conquetes chretiennes ait r^pondu, au sein de I'lslam, une 
effervescence religieuse, qui se manifesta, en particulier, par 
un d^veloppement extraordinaire du culte des saints. 

Le fanatisme religieux a e'te ainsi, historiquement parlant, et 
est encore Tun des facteurs essentiels de la vie maraboutique. II 
est pres d'etre un saint, celui qui manifeste d'une faon violente 
ses convictions religieuses. La voie de la saintete se confond 
souvent avec celle du fanatisme, surtout en face de 1'ennemi 
chretien. Les evenements qui se sont passes au Maroc, dans le 
cours de Fannie 1908, en fournissent plus d'un exemple : 1'inter- 
vention des troupes fra^aises, dans 1'ouest et dans le sud de ce 
pays, a determine la vocation de plus d'un saint musulman. 

L'asctisme est encore une route qui conduit k la saintete. 
Se retirer du monde, vivre dans Faust^rite, au vu et au su de 
tout le monde, se Jivrer publiquement k des pratiques ascetiques, 
ce sont la autant de titres k la dignitd de marabout. Nom- 
breux sont, en Afrique, les pieux musulmans qui sont parvenus, 
par cette voie, au rang de saints et qui ont e'te' 1'objet, de leur 
vivant meme, de 1'adoration des fideles. 

La folie, consid^ree souvent dans I'lslam comme un signe 



846 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

de la presence de la divinite dans 1'homme, est, plus d'une fois, 
1'origine de la reputation de saintetd de tel ou tel personnage. 

La fondation d'un ordre religieux, d'une confre'rie ou d'une 
zawia, sorte de couvent ou de monastere, 1 est, le plus souvent 
aussi, le chemin de la saintet digne d'etre 1'objet d'un culte. 

Faut-il ranger parmi les causes du culte des saints la rigueur 
meme du monotheisme islamique, comme quelques uns 1'ont 
pense ? Ce dogme fait-il d'Allah un Dieu si eloigne du fidele, 
que cet eloignement ndcessite d'une maniere absolue 1'inter- 
cession des saints ? Nous ne le pensons pas. 

L'un des traits les plus frappants de 1'Islam est, en effet, la 
persistance de son monotheisme fondamental au milieu des 
superstitions les plus grossieres de ses adorateurs. II faut 
avoir entendu, au Maroc en particulier, 1'accent de sincerity 
avec lequel le musulman, qui se rend aux tombeaux des saints 
pour implorer leur intercession, prononce le fameux "11 n'y a 
pas d'autre Dieu qu'Allah," pour se convaincre que cette 
apparente anomalie, qui consiste a n'adorer qu'un seul Dieu 
tout en rendant un culte assidu aux saints, n'existe que pour 
nous, mais qu'en elle-meme elle ne constitue aucune contradic- 
tion dans 1'esprit du fidele mahometan. 

Cela est si vrai que le fondateur de 1'ordre des Derqawa, 
Sidi l-'Arbi d-Derqawi, dont le monotheisme etait si absolu 
qu'il ordonnait a ses adeptes, lorsqu'ils re'pe'taient la shehada 
(" II n'y a pas d'autre Dieu qu'Allah, et Mahomet est 1'apotre 
d'Allah "), de ne reciter a haute voix que la premiere partie de 
la profession de foi, en se contentant de mentionner mentale- 
ment la seconde, est devenu lui-meme un saint et par suite 
1'objet d'un culte. Ses disciples sont demeures de fideles 
adorateurs du Dieu unique, mais ils n'ont garde d'oublier de 
rendre au fondateur de leur confre'rie le culte que tout bon 
musulman, au Maghreb, voue a la personne des saints. 

1 Une zawia peut tre un ensemble, parfois tres considerable, de construc- 
tions comprenant mosquee, 6cole, habitations pour les ^tudiants, les pelerins 
(s'il y a un tombeau de saint), les voyageurs, les pauvres, etc. Mais la zawia 
peut etre aussi un simple lieu de reunion et d'enseignement. 



LES SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 847 

Le plus souvent, le saint est une ceiebrite purement locale ; 
sa reputation de saintete peut s'etendre au loin, mais 1'horizon 
de son prestige religieux est ordinairement limite. Quelle que 
soit l'origme de la ve'ne'ration dont il est Fobjet, cette vene'ra- 
tion tient, dans un tres grand nombre de cas, a des causes locales. 

Nous en citerons un exemple, celui de Sidi Moh'ammed el 
Bu-Hali (" 1'Idiot "), dans les Djebala, au Maroc. Ce saint etait, 
il y a peu d'anndes encore un vieillard de 80 ans, vigoureux et 
aux formes athletiques, mais compl&tement idiot ; il devait sa 
reputation de saintete precisement a son infirmite mentale. 
Entre autres e'trangete's, on peut citer la predilection qu'il avait 
pour un mets bizarre, qu'il pr^parait lui-meme : il petrissait 
ensemble du miel, du son, du beurre, du kuskus (plat arabe 
special a la semoule), des cheveux et de la terre, et se nourrissait 
avec le plus vif plaisir de cet etrange melange. 

II y a des marabouts de naissance ; parmi eux, il faut mettre 
en premiere ligne les sherifs, descendants vrais ou inauthen- 
tiques de Mahomet. Mais ce sont surtout les bonnes ceuvres, 
la science ou ce qu'on designe de ce nom pompeux, I'ascetisme, 
la pratique de la retraite religieuse, le mysticisme, le pretendu 
don des miracles, etc., qui conduisent a la saintete. 

II y a d'ailleurs des degr^s dans la localisation des saints. 
Tel a sa reputation limitee au bourg qu'il habita ; tel autre a 
une influence regionale. D 'autres etendent leur juridiction 
spirituelle sur une partie tr&s vaste d'un pays : tels sont, au 
Maroc, les Sherifs de Wezzan, qui ont joue a plusieurs reprises 
un role eminent dans la politique marocaine, et dont le renom 
de saintete est repandu dans tout le nord du Maroc. 

Un marabout des plus curieux a cet egard est Sidi 'Abdel- 
qader el-Djilam, saint mondial dans 1'Islam, mais qui, au Maroc, 
bien qu'il soit d'origine asiatique, est invoque partout comme 
un saint du Maghreb el-Aq9a (de 1'occident le plus eloigne). 

II ne faudrait pas croire cependant que 1'influence d'un saint 
fut en raison directe de 1'etendue territoriale de son prestige 
religieux. Tel marabout, attache a un lieu determine, y 
apparait comme le bras droit de Dieu, k 1'exclusion des saints 



848 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

les plus renomme's de 1'Islam. Rien de typique, a ce point de 
vue, comme la declaration qui fut faite en 1883 a de Foucauld, 
lorsqu'il se trouvait a Bii-1-Dja'd (Tadla, Maroc) : " Ici, ni 
Sultan, ni Makhzen (gouvernement du Sultan), rien qu' Allah et 
Sidi ben Daud." Ce marabout, auquel de Foucauld se presenta, 
y etait seul maitre et seigneur. II est vrai que cette souve- 
rainete ne s'e'tendait qu'a environ deux journe'es de marche de 
Bu-1-Dja'd. 

Une cause vraiment etrange de 1'eleVation de certains 
personnages a la dignite de saint est le fait d 'avoir ete 
ren^gat ou de descendre d'un rendgat. II s'est produit plus 
d'une fois, en effet, que des ren^gats d'origine juive ou 
chre'tienne sont devenus marabouts. Un cas de ce genre d'un 
tres grand inte'ret nous est rapporte par 1'auteur du Kitab el- 
Istiq9a, Ah'med ben Khalid en-Na^iri es-Slawi. 

L'an 661 de 1'Hegire (1263 de J.C.), nous raconte cet 
e'en vain, mourut le Sheikh Abu Nu'aim Ridhwan ben 'Abd- 
allah le G^nois, dont le pere se fit musulman a la suite de 
1'incident suivant. 

" Ce chretien avait dans son pays, a Genes, un cheval qui 
s'e'chappa une nuit, entra dans la cathedrale et y fit ses excre- 
ments, sans que personne s'en apercut. Le pere de notre saint 
se hata de faire sortir son cheval ; mais, lorsque vint le matin, 
les gens de 1'eglise virent le crottin et dirent : * Certes, le 
Messie est venu hier dans 1'^glise sur son cheval et celui-ci y a 
fait ses excrements/ La ville fut mise en ^moi par cet 
e've'nement et les Chretiens se disputerent 1'achat de ce crottin, 
au point qu'une parcelle se vendait un prix ^norme." Le 
pere d'Abu Nu'aim voulut faire connaitre aux chrdtiens leur 
erreur, mais n'ayant pu les en tirer, il s'enfuit a Rabat, au 
Maroc, ou il se convertit a 1'Islam. 

Un autre cas singulier est celui d'un saint de la cote 
mdridionale du Maroc, si du moins le rcit qui nous en a 6t6 
fait a Mogador en 1901 est digne de foi. Le patron de cette 
ville, dont le tombeau est e'rige' au sud des murailles, pres de la 
mer, est Sidi Mogdul. Ce nom arabe ne serait qu'une alteration 



LES SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 849 

du nom propre e'cossais MacDonald, personnage qui aurait 
de'barque' jadis sur le rivage, ou devait etre construit Mogador 
en 1760. MacDonald y serait mort en odeur de saintete' et 
aurait e'te' transform^ apres son ddces en saint musulman. 

Noms donnes aux saints. Le nom le plus rdpandu au 
Maghreb, a 1'exception toutefois du Maroc, est celui de mara- 
bout. En Algerie, il est d'un emploi courant et on le trouve 
usite' de la jusqu'en Egypte. 

Le terme de marabout vient du mot arabe merabet\ qui 
de'signait, k 1'origine, ceux qui servaient comme soldats dans 
les ribat\ fortins e'tablis sur la frontiere des pays musulmans 
pour se ddfendre contre les infideles, et qui devenaient des 
points d'appui pour 1'attaque dirige'e contre les chre'tiens. 
Dans ces redoutes, le guerrier musulman se livrait a des 
exercices de pie'td Lorsque le temps de la guerre sainte fut 
passe', les ribcif se transformerent en Edifices religieux (zawia) et 
la merabet' ne fut plus qu'un personnage religieux, un apotre 
d'Allah, zele ou meme fanatique. C'est ainsi que le mot de mara- 
bout en est venu a etre le qualificatif, par excellence, des exalte's 
en religion, de ceux qui, par leur saintete ou par leur ardeur 
missionnaire, s'elevent incontestablement au dessus de la masse 
des fiddles. Marabout est ainsi devenu le synonyme de saint. 1 

Au Maroc, les saints sont habituellement appele's Sidi, 
" Mon Seigneur," qualificatif usite' aussi dans d'autres regions, 
et sou vent ils y recoivent le titre de Mulay, " Mon Maitre." 

Le saint est encore qualifie de wall, " celui qui est pres " de 
Dieu, 1'ami de Dieu. On emploie aussi, en parlant de certains 
d'entre eux, le terme de bahlul, " simple d'esprit." Quant au 
mot rnedjdhub, il s'applique a celui qui est habituellement " ravi 
en extase." 

Tous les termes que nous avons dnumeres sont usitds en 
parlant des saints vivants aussi bien que de ceux qui sont 
morts. 

Quant aux femmes saintes, elles sont appele'es Settt, 

1 Dans le langage des Etiropeens habitant les pays musulmans, le mot 
marabout sert aussi nommer le tombeau ou le saint est enseveli. 

VOL. VII. No. 4. 54 



850 THE HTBBERT JOURNAL 

" Madame, Ma Maitresse," et par les lettre's Seyylda, " Dame, 
Maitresse," abrEge en Sida, fdminin de Seyyld, " Seigneur, 
Maitre," d'ou est ddrivd Sidi. Settl n'est d'ailleurs qu'une 
forme contracted de Seyyldati, " Madame, Ma Maitresse." 

Les saintes sont le plus sou vent designe'es par le mot 
berbere Lalla, " Madame," et aussi " Maitresse." Les Kabyles 
leur donnent frEquemment le nom de Imma, " M&re." 

Multiplicity des saints. Dans 1'Islam de 1'Afrique du 
nord, les saints sont vraiment innombrables et leur multiplicity 
va croissant, comme nous 1'avons dit, plus on s'avance vers 
1'ouest de ce continent. Cela est si frappant qu'on rencontre 
dans certaines locality's de cette partie de 1'Afrique de veritables 
accumulations de Qubba, c'est-a-dire de tombeaux de saints. 
Tel est, aux portes de Tlemcen, cet admirable pay sage ou se 
dressent les mausolees, en ruines pour la plupart, de toute une 
compagnie de marabouts. Tel est, au Maroc, dans le faubourg 
d'Azemmiir, le sanctuaire vdnere de Malay Bu Cha'Ib, entoure 
de nombreux tombeaux de saints. 

La multiplicity des saints est telle que plusieurs marabouts 
ont deux tombeaux, renfermant chacun, a ce que pretendent 
les indigenes, le corps entier du meme personnage. 

Sidi Bu Djeddain, dans le Rif, est enseveli a Taza et chez 
les Bem-Tuzin. Un autre saint marocain, Mulay Bu-Shta, fut 
enterrd une premiere fois a E9-(^afiyym, et une seconde k 
Ez-Zghira : le corps se trouve dans les deux tombeaux. 

La multiplicite des saints est enfin confirmee par plusieurs 
proverbes africains, tels que celui-ci, courant en Alge>ie : 

" Dans le Gheris (plaine des environs de Mascara), 
Tout palmier nain a un saint, 
Toute branche de palmier a un marabout." 

Saints inconnus. Le nombre des saints est si considerable 
qu'il en est beaucoup dont le nom s'est perdu, de sorte qu'une 
grande quantit^ de tombeaux, ou de lieux consacre's au 
souvenir d'un marabout, sont design & par des qualificatifs 
Equivalents & Fanonymat. On a conclu de ce fait que 
plusieurs de ces sanctuaires remonteraient k une tres haute 



LES SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 851 

antiquite et seraient les vestiges du culte rendu aux divinite's 
paiennes. 

Souvent les saints inconnus sont simplement qualifies par 
le mot El-Merabet', le marabout. Souvent aussi le saint 
anonyme est appele Sidi 1-Mokhfi, " Mon Seigneur le cachd." 

A Alger, les marabouts anonymes, dont les tombeaux sont 
places pres d'une route, sont appeles Sidi C^ah'eb et'-Trlq, 
" Mon Seigneur qui est au bord du chemin." 

Enfin, une designation qui ne manque pas d'originalite, est 
celle de Sidi 1-Gherib, " Mon Seigneur 1'etranger." Tel est le 
saint anonyme dont la d^pouille mortelle repose chez les 
Beni-alah', en Algerie. 

L'anonymat, il est a peine besoin de 1'ajouter, peut couvrir 
un saint inauthentique. Tel est le cas d'un prdtendu marabout 
Abu Turab, dont le mausolee s'eleve au Caire, et dont le nom 
signifie " Pere du sable." 

Le celebre historien arabe El-Maqrizi (t 1442) raconte, au 
sujet de ce tombeau, 1'interessante histoire que voici : " En cet 
endroit, il y avait autrefois des collines de sable. Quelqu'un 
voulut y batir une maison. Comme il creusait les fondations, 
il rencontra les ruines d'une mosquee. Les gens nommerent 
alors les ruines de cette mosqu^e (d'apres une maniere de parler 
commune en arabe) Pere du Sable (Abu Turab). Avec le 
temps, cette appellation fut consideree comme un nom propre: 
ainsi prirent naissance le Sheikh Abu Turab et son tombeau." 

Saint es. Au nombre tres eleve' des marabouts, il faut 
ajouter celui des femmes maraboutes, tres important aussi dans 
le Maghreb. 

L'Islam, des ses origines et de tout temps, a professe et 
enseigne d'une maniere gendrale le respect de la femme, et 
plus spe'cialement la veneration pour celles qui se faisaient 
remarquer soit par la purete de leur vie et 1'elevation de leur 
caractere, soit par des dons spirituels exceptionnels. Dans ce 
fait se trouve la cause essentielle qui nous rend compte de la 
genese et du developpement du culte des saintes a cot^ de 
celui des saints. 



852 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

A cette cause g&idrale dont les effets se sont fait sentir 
dans tout I'lslam, il faut ajouter, pour ce qui concerne 
1'Afrique du nord, le respect que les Berberes, dans I'antiquite', 
te'moignaient a leurs prophetesses. 

Voici, en effet, ce que nous dit Procope, 1'historien byzantin 
du VI e siecle : " Chez les Maures, il n'est pas permis aux 
hommes de prophetiser. Ce sont des femmes qui, apres avoir 
accompli certains rites sacres, touchees par 1'esprit, d^voilent 
1'avenir, aussi bien que les anciens oracles." 

Les legendes des maraboutes montrent que les descendants 
des anciens Maures n'ont pas cesse d'etre des adorateurs de la 
saintete feminine. 

Saints communs aux musulmans, aux juifs et aux chretiens. 
Comme si le nombre des saints et des saintes de I'lslam 
etait insuffisant, les musulmans ont adopt e certains saints 
d'origine juive on chretienne, dont 1'intercession leur a paru 
trop pre'cieuse pour etre negligee et laissde aux seuls juifs et 
chr^tiens. Cette observation, qu'on peut faire en Orient 
com me en Occident, est frappante dans certaines localites du 
Maghreb. 

A Tlemcen, les juives et les musulmanes vont faire des 
sacrifices au tombeau de Sidi Ya'qub et demander au 
marabout de leur faire avoir des enfants. 

II y a a Fez le tombeau d'une sainte juive, Sol Ashuel, a 
laquelle les musulmans rendent un culte. Cette juive, dit-on, 
subit le martyre a Fez plutot que d'abjurer la foi de ses 
peres. 

Le tombeau de St Louis, pres de Tunis, est encore 
v&iere' par les musulmans. A Alger, un vieux marabout, 
que 1'abbe Barges connaissait particulierement, avait adresse^ 
un curieux ex-voto a la Vierge et 1'avait fixd dans une niche 
ou se trouvait la statue de la Madonne, dans la cath&lrale 
d'Alger. 

Ces exemples tendent a montrer que, plus la superstition 
populaire, dans une religion, est grossiere et profonde, plus elle 
cherche a prendre sa part des l^gendes pieuses des religions 



LES SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 853 

voisines, dans la mesure ou ces Idgendes correspondent a son 
sentiment religieux. 

Hierarchic des saints. Le nombre des saints et des saintes 
est si considerable qu'il s'y est e'tabli de toute necessitd une 
sorte de hidrarchie, bien que, dans 1'Islam, on ne trouve point, 
comme dans d'autres religions, une serie de grades de'termine's 
dans Fe'chelle des marabouts. II est vrai de dire que, dans la 
religion musulmane, c'est la voix populaire qui be'atifie et 
canonise ; aucune autorite' religieuse constitute ne prononce 
sur la qualitd et le degre de saintete. 

II y a des saints de toute categoric. II y en a de sordides 
et de pouilleux ; il en est d'autres riches et vivant en grands 
seigneurs. Les uns sont de bas etage, les autres sont des 
princes ; il en est meme, au Maroc, qui ont adopte comme 
insigne le parasol, comme le Sultan. 

Certains saints sont mis incontestablement au dessus de la 
foule des autres, bien que la tendance de chaque region ou de 
chaque localitd soit de proclamer le sien le premier et le plus 
puissant de tous. 

C'est ainsi qu'au Maroc, dans le nord du moins, Mulay 
Idris, fondateur de Fez, est ve'ne're' au meme degre que le 
Prophete. Mais de tous les saints de 1'Islam, aussi bien au 
Maghreb qu'ailleurs, le plus grand et celui dont 1'intercession 
est consid^ree comme omnipotente, dans le sens metaphysique 
du mot, est sans contredit Sidi 'Abdelqader el-Djilam de 
Bagdad, qui a fonde 1'ordre religieux des Qadriyya. 

Don des miracles. Les saints possedent la Karama, " faveur 
divine," et par elle ils re9oivent le don des miracles, le 
Taparruf. 

La Baraka "benediction" est une parcelle de la grace 
divine qui a dte accordee par Dieu au marabout, et que ce 
dernier peut passer a ses descendants ; cette baraka se transmet 
par la salive. De la 1'usage des marabouts de cracher dans la 
bouche de leurs disciples, pour leur donner 1'initiation, et dans 
la bouche de ceux qui viennent les implorer, pour leur com- 
muniquer a eux aussi la baraka. 



854 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Comme dans toutes les religions qui croient pleinement au 
surnaturel, dans 1'Islam le don des miracles n'est pas simple- 
ment ^chu en partage aux saints du passd Les miracles sont 
de tous les temps et les marabouts vivants en accomplissent 
autant que ceux qui sont morts depuis des annees ou des 
siecles. 

On retrouve dans les legendes des saints de 1' I slam tous les 
genres possibles et toutes les categories imaginables de miracles, 
tels qu'on les constate dans les autres religions. Nous ne 
signalerons ici que quelques miracles typiques. 

Un don par excellence des marabouts est celui de I'ubiquite'. 
Le saint marocain Sidi 1-h'adjdj Qenbur, par exemple, a e'te' 
vu le meme jour, a la meme heure, faisant sa priere dans deux 
endroits tres eloignes 1'un de 1'autre. 

La puissance des saints se manifeste, entre autres faits 
surnaturels, par le deplacement de choses d'un poids enorme, 
comme des rochers. C'est ainsi que Sidi Salem, le saint de 
Tizza, en Algerie, pour confondre de son imposture un faux 
marabout, ordonna aux sept rochers, qui se dressaient sur les 
hauteurs dominant le wady Tizza, de descendre dans la vallee, 
ce que firent les rochers, dont 1'un ecrasa I'imposteur. 

Les saints ont le pouvoir de se transporter instantanement 
a des distances fabuleuses. Le fameux 'Abdelqader, invoque' 
a El-Abiodh, en Algerie, par une femme qui avait laisse tomber 
son enfant dans un puits, accourut de Bagdad sous terre et 
reut 1'enfant dans ses bras avant qu'il cut touche la surface 
de Feau. 

Les saints marchent sur les eaux ; ils peuvent desse'cher la 
mer, tarir les rivieres, etc. Ils ont aussi le pouvoir de faire 
jaillir des sources, de faire couler les cours d'eau, de les 
de'tourner, etc. 

Ils ont le pouvoir de se rendre invisibles, de meme qu'ils 
peuvent rester longtemps sans boire ni manger. 

Les saints ont le pouvoir de rayonner et de se manifester 
par des lumteres ou des flammes. Tel marabout apparait sous 
la forme d'une lueur phosphorescente r^pandant autour d'elle 



LES SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 855 

des reflets bleuatres et tremblotants. Tel autre s'avance sous 
1'apparence d'ime colonne lumineuse qui semble pe'ne'trer dans 
le sol. Le feu a toujours efte le symbole de la vie spirituelle. 

Les saints operent des guerisons et des resurrections. On 
va prier aupres de leurs tombeaux pour recouvrer la sante. 
Les femmes steriles s'adressent a certains d'entre eux, dont 
c'est la speciality, pour obtenir le privilege de la maternite'. 
Les hommes dpuises et les vieillards vont demander a d'autres, 
dont c'est la fonction plus particuliere, de leur rendre leur 
virilite. Sidi Mogdul, a Mogador, est un marabout speeialiste 
de cette categoric. 

Les saints ont le pouvoir d'apparaitre apres leur mort et de 
ressusciter pour accomplir un nouveau miracle, et inter venir, 
comme Dieu lui-meme, dans les evenements. Les marabouts 
peuvent aussi s'entretenir avec les saints defunts ou meme 
morts depuis des siecles. Us peuvent douer de la parole les 
animaux, les arbres, les pierres, etc. Us ont le don de trans- 
former les corps, par exemple 1'eau en miel, le metal en 
parfum, etc. 

Les saints chassent les mauvais esprits et protegent celui 
qui les invoque contre Faction pernicieuse des djinns. Pres du 
tombeau de Sidi Ya'qub, a Tlemcen, se trouve une niche 
appelee Bit-Djenun, "la maison des djinns." Le gardien m'a 
raconte, avec une candeur pleine de gravite, que les demons 
se rendent dans cette niche et qu'on y vient pour se faire 
delivrer d'une possession. Le possede passe la nuit dans cet 
endroit, en ayant soin de mettre sa tete dans la niche ; le 
lendemain matin, le djinn a disparu. 

Le miracle de la multiplication des pains se reproduit 
souvent dans la legende des saints musulmans. Tel le plat 
inepuisable de couscous que le marabout algerien, Sidi Ah'med 
el-Kbir, offrit a toute une caravane. 

Nous citerons encore deux autres categories de miracles 
attribues aux saints musulmans, qui pr^sentent un interet 
particulier, a cause des eVenements militaires qui se sont passes 
tout recemment encore, en 1908, dans le nord de 1'Afrique. 



856 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Le premier de ces faits surnaturels est le don d'etre ou de 
rendre invulnerable. Certains marabouts ont la conviction 
d'etre a Fabri des balles et pretendent confdrer k leurs disciples 
cette immunite. 

Pendant les insurrections qui ont edate en Algdrie centre 
la domination franchise, de nombreux fanatiques ont preche la 
guerre sainte contre les Strangers, s'afFublant tous du titre de 
Mahdi, le Messie musulman, tous etant sherlfs et marabouts. 
Tous se disaient invulndrables aux balles des fusils fran9ais, et 
malgre que plusieurs aient pe'ri dans les combats, la foi des indi- 
genes dans leur soi-disant invulneYabilite n'a pas ete e'branle'e. 

En avril 1908, le grand marabout Mulay 1-H'asen, chef 
de la fameuse Jiarqa, que les troupes francaises eurent a 
combattre dans le Sud-Marocain, electrisait ses soldats en leur 
disant : " Ne craignez pas les Roumis, car, lorsqu'ils tireront 
sur vous, les balles de leurs fusils se changeront en dattes, et 
les fusils cracheront de Feau de rose." 

Le second fait surnaturel a signaler encore est peut-etre 
plus curieux et se rattache au don de prophetic qu'on accorde 
aux marabouts. 

A plusieurs reprises on a constate que des saints avaient 
predit soit 1'occupation fra^aise en Algdrie, soit les succes des 
troupes espagnoles au Maroc. 

A Alger, avant la prise de la ville par les Fra^ais, des 
predictions, repandues parmi les musulmans, annoncaient que 
" des soldats vet us de rouge (le pantalon rouge des fantassins) 
et portant une aubergine (badindjan) sur la tete (1'ancien gros 
pompon des shakos) viendraient conqueror le pays." 

Adoration des saints. - - Vivants ou morts, les saints, 
quelque illettr^s qu'ils soient (et ils le sont souvent), sont 
adores. Quiconque a ete dans 1'Afrique du nord a pu voir 
le respect superstitieux, veritable adoration, dont les marabouts 
vivants sont Fobjet : baiser le pan de leur robe, baiser 1'etrier 
ou repose leur pied, baiser les traces de leurs pas, etc., sont les 
actes essentiels qui constituent cette anthropolatrie. 

Quant aux marabouts de'ce'de's, le culte qui leur est rendu 



LES SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 857 

se manifeste surtout par les pdlerinages a leurs tombeaux. 
Certains de ces p^lerinages sont accomplis par des foules 
immenses, lors de la fete du saint. A cette occasion des 
banquets religieux, en 1'honneur du marabout, sont cele'bres ; 
on leur donne le nom de wa'da ou de t'a'am. 

A cot du pelerinage annuel qui, pour plusieurs saints 
illustres ou reputes, atteint les proportions d'un evenement 
religieux, il y a le pelerinage individuel ou ziara. Le fidele 
musulman se rend au tombeau de son saint de predilection 
pour lui demander une faveur, on lui adresser son culte 
d'actions de grace. II s'y pre'sente avec des offrandes varie'es 
pour le saint lui-meme s'il est vivant, et aussi pour le repre'- 
sentant du marabout, descendant du saint ou simple moqaddem 
(prepose') ou ukll (gardien), qui bdneficie lui-meme du prestige 
du marabout, dont il surveille la sepulture. Un sacrifice, en 
1'honneur du marabout, est accompli par le pelerin, qui, suivant 
sa fortune, offrira un bceuf, un mouton, un bouc ou une poule. 
Cette victime est le plus souvent mangee par celui qui 1'a 
present ee, aupres du tombeau me me du marabout ; parfois elle 
est donne'e au moqaddem ou partage'e avec lui. Le fidele fait 
aussi une offrande au moqaddem, offrande appele'e ziara comme 
le pelerinage lui-meme. Ce cadeau est de valeur tres diverse, 
selon la position du pelerin ; il consiste en argent et en nature 
(ble', beurre, sucre, bougies, etc.). 

Une autre source de revenus pour le marabout, au Maroc, 
provient de la zet'at'a ou escorte des voyageurs en pays peu 
stir, moyennant un droit percu par le saint ou par son repre'- 
sentant. C'est la encore, au Maghreb, 1'une des formes du 
prestige maraboutique. 

On peut en dire autant de la beshara, c'est-a-dire de 1'entre- 
mise du marabout entre le voleur de bestiaux et la victime 
du vol. Moyennant argent, le saint beshshar fait rentrer le 
vol en possession du betail d^tourne' ; quant k la taxe qu'il 
per9oit ainsi, le marabout la partage avec le voleur. 

Protestation contre ladoration des saints. Le culte dont 
les marabouts sont 1'objet a pousse' leurs adorateurs k de tels 



858 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

exces, et les abus de la ziara ont 4t4 si criants que des pro- 
testations nombreuses, en actes ou en paroles, ont eu lieu. 

II y a des tribus ou les marabouts ne sont pas respecte's ; 
tels, par exemple, les Ida u Blal du Sud-Marocain, qui ne 
donnent rien aux marabouts, les traitant de paresseux et les 
renvoyant avec des moqueries. 

Les Bem-Messara, serviteurs des sherifs de Wezzan, 
viennent souvent piller la ville sainte ; souvent aussi ils 
s'embusquent dans sa banlieue, guettant les jeunes gallons 
et les femmes, qu'ils emportent dans leurs montagnes pour 
les vendre ou les faire servir a leurs plaisirs. 

Lorsque j'e'tais sur la cote me'ridionale du Maroc en 
janvier 1901, j'ai appris que le fameux marabout Ma el- 
'Amin, qui s'etait mis en route pour aller rendre visite a son 
ami, le Sultan de Marrakesh, venait d'etre pill et ranconne, 
comme un vulgaire voyageur, par un caid du Wady Nun. 

Continence et incontinence des saints. Si le culte des saints 
est en partie le r^sultat des vertus qu'ils peuvent avoir, le 
discredit, le mepris meme dans lequel ils tombent dans Fesprit 
de quelques uns, est certainement du, en partie e'galement, 
aux vices qu'on attribue a plusieurs d'entre eux. 

Et cependant qui ne sait que, dans la superstition popu- 
laire, tout est permis aux saints qu'on adore ! Les pratiques 
antinorniennes, suivies par plus d'un, mort en odeur de 
saintete', ont 6t souvent considerees, dans les religions, 
comme un hors la loi, privilege d'etres reputes surnaturels 
et divins. 

De nombreux marabouts vivent de la vie habituelle et 
commune, se mariant et acceptant les conditions de Fexistence, 
telles qu'elles se sont form^es dans la socie'te musulmane. II 
en est d'autres qui se livrent, les uns a la continence et a 
I'asce'tisme, les autres k 1'incontinence et a la delmuche. C'est 
de ces derniers que nous aurons surtout a parler ici. 

Les saints continents et ascetes sont 1'exception dans 
rislam. Cela vient du fait, commun aux deux grandes 
religions monotheistes se'mitiques, que 1'ascdtisme n'y est pas 



LES SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 859 

en faveur. Le Coran, tout aussi bien que 1'Ancien Testament, 
est opposd a la mutilation de Ttre humain, et, par suite, a 
toutes les pratiques qui limitent ou arretent le libre epanouisse- 
ment de la vie chez Fhomme. 

On a observe avec raison que, si le musulman qui aspire 
a devenir marabout cherche a se faire remarquer par son 
ascetisme, une fois devenu marabout, il renonce volontiers 
aux actes de continence, qui n'ont eu qu'un but, lui servir 
d'e'chelle a la dignite de saint. 

On cite cependant des marabouts ayant pratique ou prati- 
quant Fascetisme et la continence. On cite aussi des saintes 
qui ont du leur renom de maraboutes a leur virginite. 

C'est a ce groupe qu'il faut rattacher les saints pouilleux et 
sales, circulant a moitie nus, vetus de loques sordides et affec- 
tant le plus grand mepris pour les biens de ce monde. Tel 
etait le fondateur de 1'ordre religieux des Heddawa, Sidi 
Heddi, au XIII 6 siecle. 

II y a aussi les marabouts pratiquant Fausterite, mais non 
la continence. Tel fut 1'illustre marabout * Abdallah ben 
Yasm, le fondateur et le chef des Almoravides, reTormateur 
re'pute par ses austerites, et qui mourut sur le champ de 
bataille en 1059. Ce saint etait loin d'etre un modele de con- 
tinence. Voici ce que Fauteur du " Rudh el-Kartas " nous 
apprend sur ce pieux personnage : " Son austerite' ne 
Fempechait point de voir un grand nombre de femmes. 
Chaque mois, il en epousait plusieurs et s'en separait succes- 
sivement; il n'entendait pas parler d'une jolie fille sans la 
demander aussitot en mariage." 

Le chapitre des saints bons vivants, de'bauche's ou lubriques 
est plus long que celui des continents et des ascetes. Et nous 
venons de voir que Fausterit^ de certains saints n'est que tres 
relative. II y a ici plusieurs categories a distinguer. 

Nous citerons tout d'abord les marabouts riches et grands 
seigneurs, amis des plaisirs et de la vie facile. C'est parmi eux 
qu'on trouve ces saints personnages qui, en AlgeYie et ailleurs, 
boivent en public des liqueurs fortes ou de Fabsinthe, s'enivrent 



8(50 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

meme avec de 1'eau de vie, fument 1'opium, et dont la moralite 
est d'ailleurs fort relach^e. 

II y a les marabouts parasites, ne cherchant qu'k duper leurs 
admirateurs et a faire bonne chere ; plusieurs, parmi eux, ont 
ete repute's par leur embonpoint extraordinaire ou leur obesite'. 

II y a les saints obscenes, comme ce marabout dont j'ai vu le 
tombeau entre Siiq et-Tleta et Gerando, sur la route de 
Mazagan k Marrakesh, et dont le nom, ou plutot le surnom, 
est typique : il s'appelle Sidi 1-Hawwai, c'est-a-dire " le cares- 
seur" (de femmes). 

II y a les marabouts impudiques, qui saisissent une femme 
qui passe et, en public, s'unissent a elle. On en connait des 
exemples authentiques assez nombreux, a Tunis, dans diverses 
localites de 1'Algerie, a Tetuan, etc. 

On m'a raconte dans les Shawia, au Maroc, qu'un marabout, 
ayant penetr^ dans la maison d'une jeune mariee, dont il voulait 
abuser en 1'absence du mari, et ayant etd mis a la porte par la 
belle, celle-ci fut vivement blamee par son epoux, lorsqu'a son 
retour au domicile conjugal, il apprit la vaillante resistance de 
sa femme aux tentatives de seduction du saint. " La cohabita- 
tion avec 1'envoye de Dieu," dit-il a sa compagne, " eut rdpandu 
la benediction divine sur notre demeure." C'est bien la 
1'expression du sentiment populaire : tout ce qui vient de 
1'homme de Dieu est bon, pur et sacre. C'est avec les memes 
principes d'une devotion aveugle que sont juge'es les prostitu- 
tions de certaines maraboutes. 

Role politique et social. Le prestige extraordinaire dont 
jouissent les marabouts, et 1'influence si grande qu'ils exeneent, 
expliquent le role politique qu'ils ont si souvent joud et qu'ils 
remplissent encore a 1'heure actuelle. 

Les marabouts, au Maghreb, se sont souvent interposes 
avec succes entre les tribus se faisant la guerre. On leur doit 
Fapaisement de nombreux conflits et, en AlgeYie meme, on a 
fait plus d'une fois appel a leur intervention pour r^gler des 
diffdrends entre indigenes et colons francais. Us sont d'une 
maniere gdndrale, dans 1'Afrique du nord, les representants 



LES SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 861 

du droit centre la violence, et du savoir, ou tout au moins du 
bon sens, contre 1'ignorance. 

En Algdrie, les patriotes et les fanatiques, qui ont souleve' 
les indigenes contre la France, e'taient tous des marabouts. 

Dans le but d'expulser les etrangers, du sol de leur pays, 
ils ont meme joue' un role eschiitologique, exploitant la 
croyance au Mahdi, et se faisant souvent passer eux-memes, 
comme nous 1'avons dit, pour ce personnage des derniers 
temps, qui pre'sidera a la fin du monde. 

Bu- 4 Amama, qui vient de mourir (octobre 1908) pres de 
Udjda (Maroc), et qui fut un adversaire acharne de la domina- 
tion franchise en Algerie, etait un marabout de cette sorte. 

C'est encore un marabout que ce celebre Mulay 1-H'asen, 
dont on a tant parle lors des evenements qui se sont passes 
d'avril a septembre 1908 dans le Sud-Marocain contigu au 
Sud-Oranais. C'est lui qui a dirige et conduit contre les 
troupes francaises les Warka formidables qui ont attaqud & 
plusieurs reprises les troupes fra^aises, et qui ont e'te mises 
en deroute, une premiere fois a Bu-Demb, les 13 et 14 mai, 
et une derniere fois k Djorf le 7 septembre 1908. On a 
raconte qu'au combat du 7 septembre, Mulay 1-H'asen, 
vieillard octogenaire, s'^tait enfui vers le Tafilalet. Quelle 
fin pour ce fanatique marabout qui, depuis des mois, avait 
preche la guerre sainte, et par ses discours incendiaires, avait 
groupe' les contingents de la derniere Karka, arme'e irrdguliere 
composee, assure-t-on, de pres de 20,000 musulmans ! 

Des saintes ont et^ aussi les inspiratrices et les directrices 
de soulevements contre les dominateurs etrangers. Telle fut, 
en Algdrie, la celebre maraboute Lalla Fat'ma, qui, en 1857, 
organisa la resistance contre les soldats francais. 

Les marabouts ont souvent aussi joue un role important 
dans la politique interieure de leur pays. 

Dans 1'Afrique du nord, depuis la fin du XV e siecle jusqu'en 
1830, deux pouvoirs rivaux ont re'gne', celui des Sherifs du 
Maroc, et celui des Turcs d'Alger. Ils dtaient nds tous deux, 
presqu'en meme temps, d'une reaction religieuse contre la 



862 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

conquete chrdtienne de 1'Espagne musulmane et centre les 
entreprises des Portugais et des Espagnols sur le Maroc. 
Cette double action des chre'tiens surexcita le fanatisme des 
Berberes et des Arabes et de'termina une revolution qui fut 
dirigee par les confre'ries religieuses et par les marabouts. Dans 
cette revolution, toutes les dynasties du Maghreb disparurent. 
Elles furent remplacees par des pouvoirs nouveaux tablis 
sous rinfluence des confre'ries ou des marabouts. 

Pour ne citer qu'un seul exemple, tir de 1'histoire 
contemporaine du Maroc, du role politique joue par les 
marabouts, nous rapporterons ce que raconte A. Moulieras 
au sujet d'un saint celebre d'Esh-Shaun, Malay 'All Shaqur. 
Ce marabout, qui en 1897 avait environ 90 ans, aurait par son 
influence fait conferer la dignitd supreme a *Abd el-'Aziz. 
" J'avais recu la mission," dit-il au Sultan El-H'asan, apres 
un simulacre d'intronisation de 1'enfant qui devait plus tard 
devenir sultan, " de vous faire monter sur le trone, toi et ton 
fils." Quel role avait-il joue lors de Favenement de El- 
FTasan? Nous 1'ignorons. 

L'influence des marabouts Ta plus d'une fois emporte sur 
celle des sultans ; leur intervention souveraine dans I'eleVation 
au trone de certains d'entre eux en est la preuve manifeste. 
Les Sherifs de Wezzan, dans la personne de Mulay T'ayyeb, 
le second directeur de la confre'rie des T'ayyibiyya, contem- 
porain du Sultan Mulay Isma'il, au XVlI e siecle, aiderent 
puissamment ce Sultan a s'emparer du pouvoir. 

Au Maroc, nombre de marabouts se considerent meme, en 
droit, comme au dessus du Sultan, et en fait ils le sont, ne 
rendant au monarque aucun hommage, ne lui accordant qu'un 
respect platonique, sans consequence pratique. Les Sultans 
ont e^te souvent a la merci des marabouts qui ont souleve' 
centre eux des tribus entieres. 

Au point de vue social, les marabouts ont souvent jou^ un 
role bienfaisant comme protecteurs de Tagriculture, creusant 
des puits, errant des oasis, deVeloppant la culture du sol et la 
rendant florissante, etc. 



LES SAINTS DANS L'ISLAM 868 

Nous avons parld plus haut de leur influence comme zet'at' 
et comme beshshar. 11 nous suffira d'aj outer, pour computer 
cet article, le patronage qu'ils exercent, vivants ou morts, soit 
a 1'dgard des corporations, soit a 1'dgard des villes. 

C'est ainsi que Mulay Bu-Shta est le patron des musiciens, 
des chanteurs et des amateurs de sports, dans la region du Fas. 
Sidi Moh'ammed el-H'adjdj Bu-'Arraqia est le patron de 
Tanger, Sidi Belliot celui de Casablanca, etc. 

Voici, enfin, pour achever ce tableau du patronage mara- 
boutique, deux breves legendes de saints, dans leurs fonctions 
de patrons protecteurs des cite's. 

Sidi Yusof et-Tlidi, patron d'Esh-Shaun, sortit de son 
tombeau, lorsque les guerriers de Lekhmas assiegeaient la 
ville ; saisissant 1'echelle, sur laquelle ils montaient a 1'assaut, 
il la jeta au loin, ecrasant les grimpeurs et les assaillants rested 
au pied des murailles. 

Sidi s-Sa'Idi, patron de T^tuan, aneantit par une formid- 
able explosion les soldats espagnols qui, en 1860, voulurent 
violer son mausole'e. 

On voit, par ces legendes, qu'il serait ais de multiplier, 
que 1'imagination populaire confirme ce que les faits nous 
apprennent de 1'influence extraordinaire exercee par les mara- 
bouts, soit au point de vue social, soit au point de vue politique. 

Comme on a pu s'en rendre compte par les observations que 
nous avons presentees sur le culte des saints au Maghreb 
1'hagiographie musulmane est d'une richesse extraordinaire, et 
peut rivaliser avec 1'hagiographie chre'tienne ou indhoue, avec 
laquelle elle offre d'ailleurs de nombreux points de ressemblance 
ou de comparaison. Tant il est vrai que partout 1'esprit 
religieux, dans ses deVeloppements multiples et ses manifesta- 
tions innombrables, se r^vele suivant des lois inflexibles dans 
leurs principes et d'une infinie varidt^ dans leurs applications. 

E. MONTET. 



ATOMIC THEORIES AND MODERN 
PHYSICS. 

LOUIS T. MORE, 

Professor of Physics, University of Cincinnati. 

IT is becoming evident that the hope of discovering the laws 
of nature and our relation to them by metaphysical reasoning 
is impossible. So little, in the long years since Plato and 
Aristotle, has been done by the philosophers to add to our 
positive knowledge, that they themselves are abandoning 
their former methods for the experimental processes of the 
psychologist. Many will frankly admit that philosophical 
study is chiefly valuable now as a history of the development 
of human thought, and agree with Renan that "science, 
and science alone, can give to humanity what it most craves, 
a symbol and a law." If this be really the case, if our attain- 
ment of knowledge rests with science alone, then it becomes 
advisable to see whether this hope also must prove fallacious. 

Of the various sciences, physics offers probably the best 
means of attack, for it lies between the concrete classifications 
of the natural sciences, such as chemistry and biology, and the 
abstract theories of pure mathematics. Physics, on the one 
hand, is less disturbed by the multitude of details which often, 
in the natural sciences, prevent the grasping of a central idea ; 
while, on the other hand, it is more circumscribed by the 
necessity of constant comparison with concrete phenomena 
than pure mathematics, and so avoids the danger of confounding 
speculation and reality. Thus the methods of physics have, to 

884 



ATOMIC THEORIES 865 

a degree, become the model which the other sciences seek to 
follow, a logical mathematical theory based on and corrected 
by experimental observation. Moreover, this science presents 
a longer and more consecutive history than most of the others. 

It is also noticeable that physics treats of problems similar 
to those of metaphysics. During the sixteenth, seventeenth, 
and eighteenth centuries philosophy and physics were closely 
united and diverged only in the nineteenth. With the mass 
of experimental data now at our disposal, an imperative need 
is again being felt for theoretical laws which shall classify them, 
and a philosophical spirit is making itself felt. The reason for 
this change in method in the last century is understood if we 
consider the state of scientific knowledge before that time. 

Few of the properties of heat, light, sound, and electricity 
were then known, but, on the other hand, the laws of mechanics 
were well established, and a solid foundation of experimental 
fact permitted a broad and comprehensive application of pure 
mathematics to that branch of physics. It is altogether 
natural that mechanics should have developed first, for it is 
the only part of the science which rests directly on the data 
of experience. It considers only material bodies and their 
sensible and common properties such as the occupation of 
space and the resistance to motion. To measure properties 
of matter other than spatial and dynamical requires more 
elaborate apparatus, and it is more difficult to separate ex- 
traneous accidents from such attributes as colour, temperature, 
and tone. We cannot, even in the present state of mathe- 
matical knowledge, discuss the complex processes of nature 
as they are presented to us ; for example, a mathematical law 
which shall define all the changes of colour, of electrical 
intensity, etc., which occur when a body is heated, is still 
beyond our powers. But it was possible, with the knowledge 
then at hand, to abstract from matter all its properties except 
that of a simple and uniform space and force attribute, and 
to derive a theory of mechanical action distinct and complete. 
And so the philosophical scientists of the French revolutionary 
VOL. VII. No. 4. 55 



866 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

period, with whom this mechanical movement culminated, 
had only mechanical problems to work on, in which their 
knowledge was practically as accurate as it is to-day. 

With the development of the Cartesian geometry and the 
calculus had come the possibility of discussing the motions 
of bodies, known as the science of kinematics. By this all 
problems concerning the paths of moving bodies and their 
velocities were capable of solution, without the necessity of 
considering the forces which produced these motions. Newton 
had published the general laws of motion and of the mutual 
forces of attraction between bodies, and d'Alembert had 
supplemented these by a dynamic law which included all the 
hitherto isolated problems involving force reactions and 
reduced them to a special case of statics. 

On the theoretic side, Kant, Lagrange, and others had 
discussed the axioms of mechanics and established the three 
units length, mass, and time, and it was generally conceded 
that the solution of any problems of mechanics into the simplest 
terms of these units was incapable of further reduction. 

But one thing remained before an imposing structure 
could be raised which should withstand criticism, and that was 
a general law to include and solve problems relating to 
a system of bodies in equilibrium and at rest. And Lagrange 
accomplished this. 

Such was the state of science when Laplace, in his Systeme 
du Monde, and Lagrange in the Mecanique Analytique, 
attempted to construct a theory and history of the universe by 
means only of the general and accepted laws of the two 
mechanics : celestial, which concerns the heavenly bodies, and 
terrestrial, those on the earth. Their problem has been stated 
in many ways, but this may serve : Given the positions and 
masses of any system of bodies, to find the configuration of the 
system at any time previous or afterward. 

By the aid of the principle of centres of inertia each heavenly 
body could be replaced by a mathematical point at which the 
whole mass was concentrated and endowed with a force of 



ATOMIC THEORIES 807 

attraction according to Newton's law of universal gravitation. 
In the same way each terrestrial body was considered to be 
composed of a great number of small elastic particles, invariable 
and indivisible, and to each of these was ascribed the force of 
attraction, known to be a property of all ponderable matter. 
This conception of matter was, even at that time, generally 
accepted, as the original atomic theory of Democritus had been 
extended and adapted to mathematical analysis by Descartes, 
Huyghens, and Boscovich. Thus all bodies and systems of 
bodies became alike in character and subject to the same 
dynamic laws ; and if the state of the universe were given at 
any time, it became merely a problem in mechanics, whose 
laws are fully known, to find its history from the beginning to 
the end. As Laplace proudly and naively answered : In this 
system there was no need of a god. Evidently this statement 
was a climax of materialism, and probably can never again be 
uttered with such assurance. 

So solidly had this theoretical universe been built, that it 
defied criticism for a century and established science finally, 
as it appeared, on a mechanical basis. The other branches 
of physics, which advanced rapidly during the nineteenth 
century, fell promptly under the influence of this mechanistic 
idea. The names employed show this clearly. We have the 
wave theories of light and sound, the dynamic theory of heat, 
and the mechanical theories of electricity and magnetism. 
In all these theories, attributes of matter, such as colour, 
temperature, musical pitch, electrical charge, etc., are ex- 
pressed by the mechanical motions and forces of atoms, and 
are measured solely in terms of the mechanical units of length, 
mass, and time. The method absolutely eliminates our senses, 
not only as instruments capable of measuring the quantity of 
an action, but even denies them the power of deciding quali- 
tatively between phenomena ; for the light which affects the 
eye, the sound heard by the ear, and the heat indicated by 
temperature are essentially the same thing, merely variations 
of the universal force of gravitation. These different attributes 



868 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of matter are scientifically identical if the forces involved are 
equal ; for as force, however manifested, is merely a mechanical 
attraction between atoms, all these quantities can be weighed 
in a chemical balance and have no essential difference. While 
there may have been great diversity amongst the physicists 
of the last century as to detail, there was but this one ex- 
planation of nature : The universe was merely a complicated 
machine, whose visible parts were connected together by a 
system of intangible links called atoms, whose complex 
motions, while they might defy our analytical skill, were 
yet completely expressible by general mechanical laws. 

To find the weak spot in this mechanistic theory, based 
on the hypothesis of the atom, is not only a difficult task, but 
it is one which runs so counter to the accepted teachings of 
science and to the natural prejudices of the mind, that it is 
not strange if most scientists now reason as though the atom 
were a matter of experimental proof rather than metaphysical 
speculation. Such a mechanistic theory of natural law as 
Lagrange and Laplace evolved, and as scientific thought of 
the last century extended, must necessarily depend on some 
similar atomistic hypothesis. Complex material bodies must 
be divided up into elementary masses so small that any con- 
ceivable variation in them, except mere inertia, must be for 
ever beyond our measurement or even conception. Because, 
if the atom were divisible or variable, which its name denies, 
then the actions of its component parts and their variations 
might be productive of such an attribute as temperature or 
colour, and thus introduce into the atom properties other than 
those purely mechanical. 

From experience we know of only one way a sensible body 
may make another move, and that is by a direct push, unless 
we are willing to endow matter with the spiritualistic powers 
Sir Oliver Lodge is inclined to assign to it, which supposition 
at once makes the problem extra-scientific. Either atoms 
must be granted a mysterious power of attraction through 
empty space, or else the part of the universe unoccupied by 



ATOMIC THEORIES 869 

ponderable matter must be filled with a medium or aether, 
to act as the mechanical link between atom and atom. Now 
this aether is either continuous or discontinuous. If con- 
tinuous, it would serve as a link ; but how is matter to move 
through it or even to exist in it unless two bodies may occupy 
the same space in the same time, or unless ponderable matter 
is but an attribute of this aetherial matter? On the other 
hand, if the aether be discontinuous, it must be porous, and 
what becomes of our link between atoms ? We are driven 
to the creation of a second more tenuous medium filling the 
spaces between the grosser one, and so on to the reductio ad 
absurdum pointed out by Clifford. 

This discussion may be readily summarised in two meta- 
physical hypotheses which are frequently accepted as axioms. 

First. Given the masses and the configuration of the 
centres of inertia of all the atoms, with the law of their 
mutual attraction, then all the attributes of matter are 
determined and the problem of the universe is solved. 

Second. As a visible link is required between moving 
parts of a machine, so invisible links, called aethers, multiplied 
indefinitely, must exist between atoms. 

While most scientists were endeavouring to extend and 
to perfect this mechanical theory, there were a few inclined 
to question the validity of the axioms on which it rested. 
Among the latter, Rankine deserves the first place. In a 
memoir read before the Philosophical Society of Glasgow in 
1855, he discusses scientific methods in general, points out 
the defects and advantages in the prevailing theories, and 
outlines a new method which he calls the science of ener- 
getics. His criticism is of the highest importance ; with 
subtile irony he exposes the absurdity of a materialistic 
theory derived from mechanics which inevitably rests on a 
purely metaphysical basis. 

According to Rankine, a true physical theory is the most 
simple system of principles by which the formal laws of 
phenomena, experimentally discovered, may be deduced. 



870 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Such a theory resembles a science like geometry in that it 
originates with definitions and axioms for first principles, and 
derives their consequences logically, by propositions. But, in 
general, a physical theory differs because these fundamental 
definitions and axioms discovered first are numerous and 
complex, since they are deduced from the mass of facts 
presented to us immediately by nature, whereas the first 
principles and axioms of geometry are few in number and 
simple in character, being the results deduced from bodies not 
necessarily real, such as a mathematical line has length only. 
In other words, the method pursued in the physical theory is 
inductive, and is consequently more tentative and laborious 
than the deductive method of geometry, as the acceptance or 
rejection of the principles deduced must depend upon their 
agreement with facts discovered gradually by observations, 
and not upon general properties agreed upon once for all. 
The propositions of geometry are final, if the axioms and 
definitions are granted ; a theory of physics is more or less 
conjectural, as its first principles are always subject to revision 
because of the discovery of new phenomena. 

Two methods of framing a physical theory may be 
distinguished. They may be termed the abstractive and the 
hypothetical methods. 

According to the abstractive method, a class of objects or 
phenomena is described and a name or symbol assigned to that 
assemblage of properties common to all the objects or 
phenomena composing the class, as perceived by the senses, 
and without introducing anything hypothetical. 

There is only one example of a complete physical theory 
formed exclusively from the data of experience by the 
abstractive method the principles of the science of mechanics. 
The objects discussed in mechanics are material and real 
bodies, all of which possess the sensible properties of occupying 
space and resisting change of motion. The phenomena dealt 
with are confined to those attributes of matter distinguished 
by the words force and motion, which we have found to be 



ATOMIC THEORIES 871 

common to all bodies of which we have any knowledge. 
And the laws deduced follow from axioms and definitions 
which express this universal experience. 

According to the hypothetical method, the existence of a 
class of fictitious objects or phenomena, which cannot be 
perceived by the senses, is assumed. And properties are 
assigned, similar to those known to be true of a class of real 
objects or phenomena, which can be perceived by the senses. 
If the consequences of such a hypothesis are afterwards found 
to be in agreement with the results of observation and experi- 
ment, then the laws, found to be true for the class of real 
objects or phenomena, may be applied to the hypothetical 
class. The objects or phenomena considered by this method 
are thus merely matters of conjecture, and their nature may be 
modified at any time so as to make the propositions derived 
from them conform to an expression of experimental fact. 
Such, for example, has been the method followed in the wave 
theory of light. To explain the observed actions of light, the 
existence of hypothetical bodies, called atoms, and the lumini- 
ferous aether, is assumed, and properties are assigned to them 
similar to those of sensible matter. As new phenomena are 
discovered the attributes of the atom or aether are modified to 
fit the requirements. This theory can be considered only as a 
convenient means of expressing natural laws, and is always 
subject to change, as it does not depend on the objective 
realities fundamental to an abstractive method. 

Just because the theory of the mechanical motions and 
motive forces of sensible bodies is the only complete physical 
theory, and because it does not require the use of a hypo- 
thetical method in its development, we have been led to give 
the hypotheses, advanced for theories of the other branches of 
physics, a mechanical form. The classes of phenomena con- 
sidered in all these theories are defined conjecturally as being 
due to some kind of mechanical motion and motive force, as 
when heat is defined as consisting in molecular motions, or 
the rigidity of solids in molecular attractions and repulsions. 



872 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

The motions and forces involved in these theories can no 
longer be ascribed to sensible matter, but either hypothetical 
bodies, such as the luminiferous aether, or hypothetical parts of 
real bodies, such as molecules, atoms, astherial vortices, or other 
imaginary elements of matter, must be created. And to them 
are assigned properties and laws resembling as closely as may be 
those of sensible bodies. In explaining new facts as they are 
discovered, the attributes of the hypothetical matter are modified, 
or new ones assumed as may best fit the case. Such mechanical 
hypotheses, not being based on experimental evidence, are held 
to fulfil their purpose when these conjectural attributes explain 
in the simplest way the largest body of known phenomena and 
when they anticipate phenomena afterwards observed. The 
importance and weight of these hypotheses increase with the 
number of phenomena whose laws they express. 

Certain hypothetical theories, such as the wave theory of 
light, are undoubtedly useful, since they have reduced compli- 
cated actions to a few simple laws. And also they tend to 
combine all branches of physics into one system in which the 
axioms of mechanics are the first principles of the whole science. 
But they must be employed with great caution and judgment. 
Their free use tends to confuse the essential differences between 
hypothesis and fact, between metaphysics and physics, and 
this confusion does now exist in the minds of the public 
generally and even in those of many scientists. A desire has, 
consequently, often shown itself to explain away, or set aside, 
facts inconsistent with a preconceived hypothesis. 

Such is briefly Rankine's criticism of the prevailing 
mechanical and materialistic theories of physics. His con- 
clusions are worthy of thoughtful consideration. It has 
always been the boast of science that by its methods we may 
avoid the pitfalls in which metaphysical reasoning inevitably 
ends. Now, if our most elaborate and complete scientific 
theory is really metaphysical, we must renounce all our proud 
claims and consider atomic and mechanical theories solely on 
the grounds of their utility and simplicity. 



ATOMIC THEORIES 878 

A metaphysical hypothesis, valuable solely for its utility, is 
always dangerous, for by constant use we tend inevitably to 
give an objective reality to things which in the beginning we 
knew to exist only in our own minds. And this tendency is 
especially deplorable in science, which does nothing for educa- 
tion if it does not recognise clearly the limits of our knowledge 
and distinguish accurately between reality and speculation. 

Now the belief in the objective reality of molecules, atoms, 
aethers, and aetherial vortices has grown so steadily that little 
objection has been made to the creation of a whole new class 
of objects, called indifferently ions, corpuscles, electrons, or 
particles, which are assumed to be the constituent elements of 
the hypothetical atom. Of the three classes of objects it is, 
at the present time, the existence of the sensible bodies which 
is in danger of repudiation. This is the case not only in the 
minds of the thoughtless but in those of the leading men of 
science. For example, Professor J. J. Thomson, in the preface 
to his Conduction of Electricity through Gases, says : " The 
possession of a charge by the ions increases so much the ease 
with which they can be traced and their properties studied 
that, as the reader will see, we know far more about the ion 
than we do about the uncharged molecule." Such a statement 
is on a parallel with the remark made to the writer by another 
distinguished physicist, that we know far more about the 
aether and the atom than we do about sensible matter. This 
is true, and in the same way as a Frankenstein might say of 
a mechanical man which he had conceived and constructed, 
I know more about him than I do about a real man. 

Such confusion of thought is directly traceable to the fact 
that many scientists have forgotten the distinction between the 
creations of nature and the creations of their imaginations. 
We can never say more of molecules, ions, and the aether, than 
that they may exist ; but ponderable matter, as perceived by 
the senses, has an objective existence, or else there is no place 
for science. Since Kant's-time the existence or the non-existence 
of those insensible links in the universal machine are known to 



874 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

be equally demonstrable ; we have no criterion of proof. It is 
curious that scientists still refuse to acknowledge this. If they 
deny Kant, the metaphysician, they have only to turn to 
Lagrange, whose scientific claims cannot be ignored, and find 
he has proved by rigid mathematical analysis that any 
phenomenon, which obeys the law of conservation of energy, 
is capable of explanation by a mechanical theory ; but, and 
here is the important point, as there is one adequate theory, so 
there are also an indefinite number of other mechanical theories 
which will, so far as our minds are concerned, satisfy all the 
requirements of the case. We have no criterion in mechanics 
by which we may determine what is the actual process of 
nature. There is no eocperimentum crucis, and we choose the 
explanation which for the moment seems the simplest. 

Our inability to decide unequivocally for one mechanical 
hypothesis instead of another is shown also by the actual 
history of physical science. Since the time of Huyghens and 
Newton we have attempted to settle the question whether 
light is due to a wave motion in an aether or to small particles 
emitted from luminous bodies. No experiment has been 
devised which definitely decides between the claims of the two 
hypotheses, yet the corpuscular theory was abandoned. The 
reason was not that either was impossible, but that the cor- 
puscle became unmanageable with the accretions added to it 
as new facts were discovered. Huyghen's wave theory, having 
outgrown its usefulness, has suffered the same fate. He 
ascribed light to a series of mechanical waves propagated 
through an elastic aether, but the attributes necessary to the 
medium are so contradictory that a new theory, advanced by 
Maxwell, was accepted as a great relief. In this theory the 
aetherial waves are not mechanical but electro-magnetic, similar 
to those we now use in wireless telegraphy. But the diffi- 
culties are still pursuing us. We know that such waves can 
pass through space, but we cannot construct a mechanical 
model of an atom which will produce or maintain these vibra- 
tions, nor have we any evidence they can affect the optic nerve 



ATOMIC THEORIES 875 

and produce the sensation of light. The prediction is not 
extravagant that, before a great while, we shall return to the 
corpuscular theory with the electrified particle, the constituent 
of the atom, as an agent. At least this has happened with 
the theories of electricity. 

If a general atomistic theory, which seems to be the only 
practicable hypothesis, involves these inherent difficulties, and 
if it presents a real peril to correct scientific thinking, the 
question arises, whether some general mechanical explanation 
of all physical phenomena is possible which is not so limited. 

Rankine, in the same essay, proposes a method which he 
calls the science of energetics. As we have been able to frame 
with some success a theory of physics by using a hypothetical 
method, we should have even more success in combining all 
the branches of the science into one general theory if the 
abstractive method were extended and applied for the purpose. 
Instead of supposing the various physical phenomena to be 
constituted, in an occult way, of modifications of motion and 
force, let us attempt to frame laws which shall embrace the 
properties common to any one class. He finds energy, or the 
capacity to effect changes, to be the common characteristic of 
the various states of matter to which the several branches 
of physics relate. If then we frame general laws regarding 
energy, we shall be able to apply them, with appropriate 
changes, to every branch of physics. 

Rankine evidently denies the advisability of trying to find 
the cause of the attraction of bodies for one another, or the 
mechanism of the propagation of light and heat through empty 
space. In all cases we have a certain quantity of energy, act- 
ing in a definite manner. Our aim should be to find by 
experiment the properties of any such manifestation, and to 
combine all common properties by general mathematical laws. 
Such was the method of Newton when he established the law 
of universal gravitation and refrained from conjecturing how 
the forces of attraction acted through space, and no discovery 
has aided science more. But after he had determined experi- 



876 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

mentally many of the laws of light, he advanced the hypothesis 
that these phenomena were caused by motions of intangible 
corpuscles. It is claimed, on good grounds apparently, that 
his corpuscular theory retarded the growth of the subject for 
more than a century, by preventing the adoption of the more 
convenient wave theory. 

Whether or not it is advisable to substitute energy for 
inertia, or mass, as the general attribute of matter which will 
best serve for a fundamental unit, may be open to discussion. 
But it seems certain to me, at least, that the formulation of 
laws deduced mathematically from experimental data alone, 
and not conjecture as to the causes of phenomena, is the true 
province of science and the only method certain not to lead us 
into vain metaphysical speculation. 

Unfortunately, the restraint and clarity of thought shown 
by Rankine are rare, and few are willing to impose limitations 
on speculation or to forgo the attempt to create a subjective 
and metaphysical scheme according to which nature shall 
work. In the hands of his successors, notably Mach, Duhem, 
and Ostwald, these barriers have been cleared. They have 
endeavoured to give an objective reality to the mathematical 
equation of energy. To make an entity of a symbol, to speak 
of centres of force as if an intelligible image were conveyed 
to the mind, to make matter and inertia an attribute of energy, 
is even more metaphysical than the concepts of atoms and 
aethers, which could, at least, be likened to sensible objects. 
With Ostwald, its most militant defender, matter disappears 
altogether ; empty space is known to us only by the quantity 
of energy necessary to penetrate it, and occupied space is 
merely a group of various energies. In his enthusiasm he 
does not hesitate at difficulties. " When a stick strikes you," 
he exclaims, " which do you feel, the stick or the energy ? " 
One might as well ask the old question, Which comes first, 
the owl or the egg? a matter of infinite dispute and no 
decision. Although Ostwald bristles with mathematical equa- 
tions and scientific terms, he asks us to return to the meta- 



ATOMIC THEORIES 877 

physical methods of the mediaeval schoolmen to thrash over 
again the endless disputes of nominalists and realists. 

As a critical attempt, the school of energetics has done 
good work by calling attention to the inadequacies of atomic 
theories, yet as a positive method it has had comparatively 
little effect. The majority of the men of science still rely 
absolutely on atomic hypotheses. Indeed, a fresh stimulus 
has been given them by the efforts to explain the experimental 
facts, recently discovered, concerning Rontgen rays, the 
passage of electricity through gases, and the properties of 
radium ; facts which will probably do more, in the end, to 
discountenance mechanical models of phenomena than the 
theoretical criticisms of the followers of the school of energetics. 

So long as the hypothesis of an invariable and indivisible 
atom gave a reasonably simple and satisfactory method of 
attacking the problems of physics, even those men of science 
who were ready to acknowledge the tentative character of the 
hypothesis and the contradictory nature of its postulates, 
were unwilling to try other methods which might retard the 
progress of science. But the phenomena mentioned above do 
not fit into the general scheme, and their explanation requires 
us either to abandon the atomic theory or to modify it 
radically. The latter has been done, and the atom is now 
considered to be a complex body composed of an aggregation 
of invariable and indivisible particles, called corpuscles or ions. 

As might be supposed, some real advantages have been 
obtained. The chemists have long sought in vain for a chemical 
element whose atom might be considered the primordial 
substance, and from which the atoms of the other elements 
were derived. This new idea of the atom offers a solution, for 
the chemists may now construct the atoms of all the elements 
out of different combinations of corpuscles. Also the early 
investigators in electricity, as Benjamin Franklin and Coulomb, 
were led to hypothecate the existence of subtile electric fluids 
to explain the fact that electrified matter sometimes showed a 
force of attraction and sometimes of repulsion. Later, in the 



878 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

theories of Faraday and Maxwell, the hypothesis of fluids was 
abandoned, and the ends of the atom of matter were endowed 
respectively with the properties of electrical attraction and 
repulsion. Now it is possible to discard this variability in the 
simple atom by supposing some of the corpuscular elements of 
a complex atom to exhibit the one kind of electric force, and 
others the opposite kind. 

In spite of these advantages and others which might be 
cited, the prime fact remains that it is now necessary to abandon 
the historic and hitherto invincible atomic theory for another 
which is still more conjectural. For the former element of 
matter, simple in nature, we have substituted another, complex 
in character, and have thereby given up the chief and to many 
the only value of an atomic theory. 

The corpuscular theories advanced, almost simultaneously 
by Lorentz and Larmor, show this clearly. Professor Larmor, 
in his treatise on ^Ether and Matter, presents a view of the 
constitution of matter which is sufficient over an extensive 
range of physical theory, and which he trusts will not be made 
more complex until it proves inadequate in some definite 
feature. According to his hypothesis, the molecule of matter 
is composed of a system, probably large in number, of positively 
and negatively electrified protions (called frequently by others 
corpuscles, electrons, or ions) in a state of steady orbital motion 
around each other. The passage of electricity through a con- 
ductor or from one body to another is effected by a transference 
of electrically charged protions from one molecule to another. 
The differences in the chemical elements, such as iron or 
hydrogen, can be accounted for by ascribing them to various 
aggregations of the protions. As for the protions themselves, 
they are in whole or part nuclei of intrinsic strain in the aether, 
places where the continuity of this medium has been broken 
and cemented together again. 

Such a theory is evidently, and in the highest degree, 
artificial and metaphysical, and Professor Larmor would be 
the last to assert that he has given a true picture of the 



ATOMIC THEORIES 879 

constitution of matter. Its value must rest on the belief 
that it is the simplest theory available for explaining experi- 
mental facts. But the difficulties inherent to the theory seem 
insuperable. It is almost inconceivable that our simplest idea 
of the ultimate constituent of the chemical element should be 
a molecule, so bewilderingly complex in character. Each 
molecule of an apparently quiescent body is itself an aggrega- 
tion of particles, each vastly more intricate than the stellar 
systems, and whirling around each other with a motion 
approximating a hundred thousand miles per second. And 
although the molecule itself still possesses the attributes of 
matter, its constituents become merely nuclei of strain in the 
aether. What must be the structure of an aether which can 
maintain such a complex of strains as all the countless atoms 
in the universe would require ? If we can never be sure 
matter is actually so constituted, it is unfortunate to create 
a world so counter to our instinctive belief that in a 
correct definition a complex idea may be explained into 
simpler parts. 

The theory of Professor Lorentz is essentially the same, 
although he does not attempt any speculations as to the 
structure of the aether or atom. But he, too, postulates the 
existence of small, electrically charged particles in all bodies 
and deduces all electrical laws from the positions and motions 
of these ions. 

It is not necessary to state that both these writers develop 
their theories with great skill and from a profound knowledge 
of the science. They have also made a great step in advance 
by achieving a closer unity in the branches of physics. But to 
attain this they have introduced postulates which lie outside 
the domain of science and have, by fixing the attention on 
a subatom, given an appearance of greater reality to the 
relatively gross atom. 

The influence of these abstruse and metaphysical theories 
on scientific thought is already apparent in a certain eagerness 
to advance startling hypotheses and novel ideas. Many men 



880 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of science of to-day have temporarily put aside the sobriety 
and restraint which should characterise scientific reasoning. 
The most tremendous results are based on insufficient evidence, 
and the simple statement that the cause of a phenomenon is to 
be found in ionic action is considered satisfactory. Physicists 
in Germany are gravely discussing whether ions are spheres 
or discs in shape. The transmutation of the elements, a 
problem which has baffled research for centuries, is an- 
nounced as an assured fact, because radium and a few other 
substances spontaneously give off energy ; because one man 
found traces of lithium in solutions of copper salts traversed 
by an electric current, 1 and because another man finds traces 
of helium gas in vessels containing radium. Surely a matter 
of such importance should not be decided before the most 
rigid elimination of more natural causes, at least before it has 
been proved that the electric current does not liberate lithium, 
and radium set free helium from the walls of the vessels used 
in both these experiments. The degradation of the radio- 
active substances, like uranium and radium, through a whole 
series of nominal substances, into a well-known element such 
as lead, cannot surely be anything but guesswork until direct 
evidence is given of the diminution of the parent body and the 
production of the new ones. Such confusion of thought and 
dissolution of the boundaries between fact and fancy is deplor- 
able, and if they create trouble in the minds of scientific men, 
they have absolutely bewildered the general public. Books 
of a popular nature are constantly appearing which change the 
results of speculation into established fact, and their readers 
naturally credit the most astounding statements. The day 
may come when a new war will arise between science and 

1 Since writing this essay, word has been received from Mme. Curie 
confirming my criticism. In repeating the experiment of Sir William Ramsay, 
she finds that traces of lithium are found when vessels of glass, quartz, or copper 
are used to contain the solutions of the pure copper salts ; but when a platinum 
vessel is substituted, no lithium appears, thus showing that, in all probability, 
the lithium was present in the substance of the vessel, and brought out of it 
by the current. 



ATOMIC THEORIES 881 

religion on the issue that the hypotheses of science are too 
metaphysical to be of value. 

It may be necessary, when the laws and phenomena of a 
science are imperfectly known, to employ a hypothetical 
method. And a hypothesis may then be of great use in 
creating a certain unity amongst diverse elements. But the 
question may well be asked, whether physical science has not 
outgrown such a state. 

The attempt to unite the phenomena of all branches of 
physics in a few general laws and to explain their cause by 
the aid of atoms has engaged the attention of the greatest 
men of science for more than a century. They have spent 
upon the problem infinite thought and pains, and in the end 
we have a body of laws firmly established on experimental 
evidence, but the causes of these laws are as hopelessly 
obscure as ever. The atom has failed to satisfy the require- 
ments, and now the corpuscle is added to explain new facts, 
an hypothesis on an hypothesis. As our knowledge increases, 
who can doubt but that these, in their turn, will give place to 
others still more complex, if the same method is pursued, 
until the succession of atoms and subatoms will make the 
whole atomistic idea an absurdity ? 

Just as we have, after centuries of incessant controversy, 
been forced to accept the fact that we cannot by reasoning 
from our consciousness obtain an objective knowledge of 
natural causes, so we must come to realise that reasoning 
from experimental evidence is subject to exactly the same 
limitations. Science, in other words, like philosophy, has no 
ontological value. Should not the men of science clearly 
recognise this fact, and confine their efforts to the legitimate 
function of science the discovery of natural phenomena and 
their classification into general laws derived by logical 
mathematical processes ? 

LOUIS TRENCHARD MORE. 

CINCINNATI. 

VOL. VII. No. 4. 56 



THE SCOTTISH ESTABLISHMENT. 

FROM AN INSIDE POINT OF VIEW. 

THE REV. DAVID FREW, B.D. 

RECENT events and movements in the ecclesiastical life of 
Scotland have so far altered the aspect of the Disestablishment 
question, and modified the attitude of controversialists on 
both sides, that practically a new situation is created for the 
Established Church, which seems to entail upon her a revisal 
of her present policy. The time may not be opportune for 
the formulation of an eirenicon, but it demands at least the 
serious reconsideration of her position, alike in her own 
interests and those of the country at large. A change, at least 
in the way of a modification or readjustment of the existing 
Establishment, if not already urgently called for, is certainly 
the point towards which the leading lines of ecclesiastical 
development are converging ; and serious consequences may 
ensue from the ignoring of this fact by the Church, and her 
failure to take action upon it. A motion was carried some 
time ago, in one of her leading presbyteries, committing the 
Church of Scotland to an " open mind " upon the Disestablish- 
ment question in her conferences with the United Free 
Church ; and it is a matter of profound regret, as well as of 
surprise, that, in spite of the possibilities with which it was 
fraught, nothing further has been heard of it. 

Hitherto the policy of the Church of Scotland has been 
confined to the maintenance of the status quo ; and there can 

882 



THE SCOTTISH ESTABLISHMENT 883 

be no question of the remarkable success, or good fortune, as 
some may prefer to have it, which has attended her efforts in 
that direction, but it would be wrong to conclude that the 
past results of this policy either guarantee its wisdom in the 
present or justify its continuance in the future. The present 
position of the Church is by no means so secure as her more 
ardent, undiscriminating supporters protest. As a matter of 
party controversy, it has become so largely dependent upon 
the vacillations of political opinion that it is unsafe to venture 
upon confident predictions regarding it. No one knows what 
a general election may bring forth. Even if it were otherwise, 
and the Church of Scotland could rely upon an indefinite 
prolongation of her present peace and freedom from attack, 
the question would still arise whether she can continue to 
stand exactly where the centuries have left her, in view of the 
changed conditions of social and religious life. A position 
may be tenable which is no longer justifiable, desirable, or 
even habitable ; in which case nothing can be gained, but 
much, if not all, may be lost, by refusing to give it up. 

In discussing the Establishment it is desirable to dis- 
tinguish between the principle involved the national recog- 
nition of religion and the system in which it is practically 
embodied. The principle may be regarded as inviolable, and 
good for different times and circumstances, while the actual 
system through which it is applied may be considered open 
to serious objection. In the nature of the case, the latter 
must be capable of adaptation to the changing order of things, 
if it is not to become antiquated and irksome. The exist- 
ing Establishment, with little or no change, is the heritage of 
a time so utterly unlike the present that it is only by an effort 
of the imagination that the modern mind can even partially 
comprehend it. Scotland had almost realised its ideal of 
a Presbyterian Theocracy : it had a Parliament of its own, 
the members of which were mostly staunch adherents of the 
national religion ; Church and State were virtually the same 
body, acting in different capacities, and viewing itself under 



884 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

different aspects ; toleration, in matters of religion, was almost 
unknown ; denominationalism had not arisen ; and the social, 
industrial, and political developments which have since trans- 
formed the life of the people lay hidden in the distant future. 
It is not surprising that a system conceived and inaugurated 
under such circumstances should now stand in need of adapta- 
tion and amendment ; the wonder rather is that it has been 
able to withstand material modification so long. In one 
direction, at least, the practical working of the system is out 
of touch with the theory on which it is supposed to proceed. 
Parochial divisions and equipment may be maintained, but 
it is no longer possible to carry out parochial oversight, 
organisation, and discipline, as originally intended, in the 
larger towns and cities, and even in many country districts 
in which there is a multiplicity of churches. With regard to 
other points of a subsidiary kind such as the incidence of 
ecclesiastical assessments, the allocation of sittings in the parish 
churches, and the method of payment of stipends the Church 
would probably admit the advisability, if not the necessity, of 
change. It is not so much these things, however, which 
trouble the modern conscience and press upon the Church 
the reconsideration of her compact with the State, as a matter 
of graver, spiritual import, dissatisfaction with which has been 
accumulating for years, and is no longer voiceless within her 
own borders. The control of the State over the doctrine of 
the Church, in the present conditions of national and religious 
life, is felt to be, not merely an anomaly, but a serious impedi- 
ment to the spiritual growth and well-being of the Church, 
and a cause of alienation from the sympathies and confidence 
of other ecclesiastical bodies with which she has the closest 
intellectual and traditional affinities. The principal organ of 
the State is now a heterogeneous House of Commons, only 
a fraction of the members of which have any real, first-hand 
acquaintance with Presbyterian beliefs, or any direct interest 
in them ; it is scarcely tolerable that the regulation of the 
doctrine of the Church, or any power of interference whatever 



THE SCOTTISH ESTABLISHMENT 885 

with her inner life, should be entrusted to it. Of course, the 
prerogative of the State is purely negative: a right, not to 
impose new doctrines upon the Church, but only to confine 
her to her own traditional lines of belief, and punish her for 
deviations from them. Still, in an age of religious toleration, 
freedom of thought, and general progress and enlightenment, 
it is a grievous encumbrance, to which she can hardly continue 
to reconcile herself without shirking her spiritual responsi- 
bilities and putting herself hopelessly out of touch with the 
spirit of the time. To be true to her high calling, the Church 
must have doctrinal autonomy ; she must be delivered from 
external coercion in matters of belief. Whether, as is some- 
times contended, her present subjection to the State be an 
essential implicate of the Establishment principle, or only, as 
may be argued, a variable, contingent part of the system 
through which it works, the question of its abolition must be 
faced. 

The realisation of this necessity seems to be the logical 
consequence, and can scarcely fail to be the actual outcome, 
of the two leading movements at present proceeding in the 
Church of Scotland. On the one hand, there is the movement 
for Creed relaxation and revision which has been gathering 
force and volume during the last twenty years. At every 
point of its progress, it has not only been hampered and 
checked, but baffled and thrown back, by the want of the 
power of doctrinal initiative in the Church. The discussion 
of its merits, if not actually precluded by the compact with 
the State, has been robbed of point and reality by the con- 
sciousness of inability to act without the sanction of the 
secular power, and the fear of untoward consequences resulting, 
not merely from the defiance of that power, but from anything 
in the nature of an appeal to it. Spontaneity and candour 
could hardly be expected, even in the leaders of the Church, 
when this ghost continually appeared at their banquet, and 
this Damocles' sword dangled over their heads. Advantage 
was taken of the abnormal political and ecclesiastical situation 



880 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of 1905 to obtain from the State the right of prescribing the 
Formula of subscription to the Confession of Faith ; but, as 
no alteration was thereby effected in the Act of 1690, on 
which the Establishment is based, it is becoming increasingly 
apparent that the relief supposed to be gained is only of a 
nominal nature. The Church is still bound to the Confession, 
though in the future she will have the empty satisfaction of 
forging and fixing the ties that bind her. She is busy at 
present manufacturing a new Formula ; but its completion 
will leave her position very much as it was before. It is 
difficult to see what actual result can be attained, other than 
a futile disturbance of the ecclesiastical air, so long as the 
doctrinal control of the State is maintained. Something must 
be done to get rid of that incubus, even at the risk of 
Disestablishment. The same conclusion follows from the 
consideration of the movement for union with the United 
Free Church. It is hopeless to expect that Church to enter- 
tain overtures even for co-operation with a Church that still 
acknowledges the right of the State to interfere in spiritual 
matters. It is worse than useless to propose an incorporating 
union : the members of the United Free Church would be 
foolish indeed if they should return to the fold which has 
already proved too strait for them, and which is still shepherded 
by the dog which formerly harassed them and drove them 
into the wilderness. They and their fathers have sacrificed 
much for spiritual independence ; they have purchased their 
liberty to think and believe as the spirit moves them at a 
great price ; they cannot belie their traditions, stultify their 
contentions, and risk their distinctive principle by associating 
themselves with a Church in which the civil power has still a 
controlling voice. The evils of disunion may be great and 
clamant and the Church of Scotland has a way of dwelling 
upon them which must be very irritating to the dissenting 
mind but greater evils might result from a sacrifice of 
principle and a betrayal of the spiritual interests of religion. 
To prove the sincerity of her desire for union, it is not enough 



THE SCOTTISH ESTABLISHMENT 887 

for the Church of Scotland to send annual overtures of peace 
to the United Free Church, and suggestions for a friendly 
conference, or even to throw her doors hospitably open : she 
must bethink herself of the obstacle that blocks the way, and 
consider seriously the possibility of its removal. It is not 
want of respect, unfriendly feeling, or love of schism that 
actuates the United Free Church in her response to the 
overtures of the Establishment, but a vital principle which 
she cannot give up ; and, until this is recognised in the Church 
of Scotland, proposals for union must fail of result. Freedom 
from State control, which is necessitated by her own expanding 
thought, and consequently desiderated by many of her own 
members, is at the same time the indispensable condition of 
her Presbyterian brethren entering into fellowship with her. 

The advent of the current year was marked by the issue of 
an important pamphlet on Scottish Church union, in which 
the venerable Dr Mair, one of the foremost champions of the 
subject, and an ex-Moderator of the Established Church, gives 
a perspicuous review of the present situation, and enters an 
earnest, eloquent plea for the cessation of Presbyterian 
divisions. The most significant part of this paper, from the 
point of view of the present discussion, is that in which the 
author summarises recent proceedings in the direction of union, 
and sets down side by side the conditions regarded as indis- 
pensable by the Church of Scotland and the United Free 
Church respectively, and embodied in their latest resolutions. 
On the one hand, the Church of the Establishment professes 
herself only able to proceed in the matter " consistently with 
the continuance of the national recognition of religion " ; on the 
other hand, the United Free Church stipulates that the steps 
to be taken will be " consistent with the principles of her 
spiritual freedom" These are crucial conditions, as Dr Mair 
observes ; but his further remark that " happily they are not 
incompatible with each other " is not so evident on the face of 
it, though he seems to have explained it in a previous paper. 
If these conditions are to be taken in the sense in which they 



888 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

are generally understood, and so far there has been no official 
attempt to impart any other signification to them, they 
certainly are, and it is difficult to see how they ever can be 
anything else than, incompatible with each other. There is 
practically no ambiguity about the condition laid down by the 
United Free Church : " the principles of her spiritual freedom " 
are now tolerably clear to every intelligent Scottish mind (she 
has been at particular pains to make them so), and amount 
virtually to the repudiation of any external authority in 
matters of order and doctrine. But what, it may be asked, 
does the condition formulated by the Church of Scotland 
mean ? Does it mean the continuance of the existing system 
of Establishment, and consequently the maintenance of the 
control of the State, even theoretically, in spiritual affairs ? 
In the absence of any official statement to the contrary, this 
is certainly the sense in which most people will interpret it ; 
and if that is to be taken as its meaning, then there is no resist- 
ing the conclusion that the positions of the two Churches are 
quite incompatible, and no immediate rapprochement is 
possible between them. The pamphlet of Dr Mair supplies a 
pressing demand of the situation in focussing attention upon 
these conditions of union promulgated by the Churches, for 
their juxtaposition brings out more clearly than anything else 
could the real point at issue between them. It is to be hoped 
that it will serve the further purpose of inciting the more 
thoughtful minds in both communions, but especially in that 
to which he himself belongs, to an earnest, generous ejideavour 
to bridge over the incompatibility disclosed. The first step 
towards that desirable result, or indeed towards any general 
agreement such as Dr Mair desiderates as a basis of practical 
thought, appears to lie with the Church of the Establishment, 
in seeking spiritual autonomy for herself. Her indispensable 
condition of union would be more palatable to the sister 
Church if it involved no more than the national recognition of 
religion in such a form as would not carry with it the doctrinal 
control of the State. 



THE SCOTTISH ESTABLISHMENT 889 

Is it too much to hope that a bold and earnest attempt 
to secure that freedom in spiritual matters, which is her in- 
defeasible right, would excite the sympathy of the United 
Free Church, and induce her to make common cause with the 
Church of Scotland in preserving and maintaining what is good 
in the Establishment ? Along this line seems to lie a solution 
of the ecclesiastical situation which would be advantageous and 
honourable to both. On the one hand, the Church of Scotland 
would be yielding no matter of principle, but ridding herself 
of an obstacle to her spiritual life and growing desire for wider 
co-operation and communion; and, on the other hand, the 
United Free Church would be securing all that she has con- 
tended for, and other things besides ; while both would be 
advancing the general religious interests of the country, and 
helping to realise the dream of a Church at once truly National 
and Free. Of course there are those in both Churches who 
will resent the idea of compromise ; but it may be sufficient to 
remind such extremists in the Church of Scotland of the 
invidious exclusiveness and insecurity of their present position, 
and to warn those of them in the United Free Church of the 
probability of results accruing from unconditional Disestablish- 
ment such as they do not contemplate. No matter, however, 
what the opposition or consequences may be, the time seems 
to have come for the Church of Scotland to take up the 
question of the external authority involved in the State con- 
nection, and consider it with an " open mind." 

DAVID FREW. 

DALBKATTIE. 



KANT'S TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC 

IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN 

MATHEMATICS. 

PROFESSOR W. B. SMITH, 

Tulane University, New Orleans. 

THE central mass in Kant's philosophic work is the " Critik der 
reinen Vernunft," and of this the centre is commonly located 
in the Analytic, more particularly the Transcendental Deduc- 
tion of the Categories. Not a few, however, find in the 
^Esthetic, in the doctrine of Space and Time as forms of 
intuition, by far the most enduring and important contribution 
made by the Konigsberger to the fund of human thought and 
knowledge. Such was the judgement of Schopenhauer, the 
most luminous intellect that shone on German philosophy 
during the past century, a judgement repeatedly and emphati- 
cally expressed. Such was the impression that was made on 
the mind of contemporaries, most excellent judges, 1 and found 
voice in the epithet " all-annihilator " (den alles Zermalmenden), 
applied to him in Morgenstunden (1786). Even to-day, in the 
general thought of the competent, his name is associated quite 
as closely and certainly as honourably with the subjectivity of 
Space and Time as with the Categories, the Antinomies, or the 
Categorical Imperative. This great idea, clearly announced 
in the Dissertation of 1770, heralded the birth of the Critical 
Philosophy, and having watched by the cradle it will perhaps 

1 " The Kantian literature of the preceding (eighteenth) century, which in 
many respects is superior in quality to that of the present," P'aihinger, ii. 142. 

890 



KANT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS 891 

follow the hearse, for hardly another Kantian idea is likely to 
outlive it. For generations it marched triumphantly over 
Europe, and shaped the whisper of nearly every philosophic 
throne. But the days that follow, says Pindar, are the wisest 
witnesses. What, then, is their testimony at the end of five 
quarters of a century ? 

In the Supplement II. vi. to Edition B (1787), Kant pro- 
pounds " the peculiar problem of pure reason " in the words : 
" How are synthetic judgments a priori possible ? " Whether 
we accept this, his own deliberate statement, or hold with 
Adickes that it is a later, or with Paulsen that it is an un- 
fortunate intrusion, certain it is that Kant makes much of this 
problem and of the distinction between analytic and synthetic 
judgements whereon it rests. Of these, the analytic states 
in the predicate some partial content of the subject, as bodies 
are extended, extension being part of the concept of body. 
The synthetic, which might more properly be called prosthetic, 
adds in the predicate what is not present in the subject, and 
hence not to be discovered therein by any analysis ; as all 
bodies are heavy, this heaviness not belonging in any way to 
the bare concept of body. 

This distinction, which reappears in Mill as the division of 
propositions into Verbal (or essential) and Real (or non-essential 
or accidental) (Logic, L, 6, 4), had not escaped the attention 
of Locke, who devotes a chapter (viii., Bk. iv.) to Trifling 
Propositions, that bring no increase of knowledge, as opposed 
to Instructive Propositions. The former include all identities, 
and " secondly, when a part of any complex Idea is pre- 
dicated of the Whole." Kant describes his analytic judge- 
ments as "those in which the connection of the predicate 
with the subject is thought through Identity." Plainly, then, 
his agreement with Locke is exact, though Kant is supposed 
to have derived at this point from Wolff. With the English- 
man, to form instructive propositions is "to find out inter- 
mediate ideas, and then lay them in such order one by 
another that the understanding may see the agreement or 



892 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

disagreement of those in question" (iv. 8, 3), and all such 
were, of course, experiential. The Continental dogmatism, on 
the other hand, professed to derive a body of certain truth 
analytically from concepts. But Kant, mediating between 
Locke and Leibnitz, held that synthetic judgements may be 
either a posteriori or a priori : the former, when the under- 
standing falls back on a complete experience of an object 
conceived by a concept (embodying only partial experience), 
to furnish an additional element (as heaviness) that may be 
then added to the concept by synthetic judgement ; the latter, 
when no such recourse to experience is possible, but when 
nevertheless such judgements, as mere matters of fact, are 
actually formed. How is this possible ? Such is the 
" mystery hidden " which Kant, perhaps unconsciously parody- 
ing 1 Cor. ii. 6-8, declares none of "the ancients" had known, 
else they would not have builded systems vainly, and which 
he set himself to reveal. 

With regard to this famous division of judgements (which 
modern logic disowns, declaring that judgement is at once 
analytic and synthetic), it may be observed that it is touched 
with genuine Kantian formalism, which builds up the world 
of thought rigidly, architecturally, fitting one stone precisely 
on the other, with all the parts symmetrically disposed, the 
lines hard and fast, and the divisions carefully numbered and 
registered. The great process of organic growth and meta- 
bolism found little recognition in Kant's psychology. It is only 
the full-formed adult intelligence, panoplied with intuitions, 
concepts, and ideas, that he deems worthy of his inquisition. 
In point of fact, to know correctly is to know genetically. 
The sharply bounded polyhedral blocks of understanding, 
which Kant calls Concepts, cut small figure in the life of the 
mind. Concepts there are, certainly, but their outlines are 
often vague, they shape and reshape themselves almost con- 
tinuously, they coalesce and fuse into one, or else they dissolve 
and break up into many ( " the concept stands never within 
safe limits," A 728). Their life is as changeful and eventful 



KANT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS 893 

as the life of mind itself. As Mill has clearly seen, the 
analytic judgements in question simply state some content of 
the meaning of a word, one of its many connotations. Such 
analysis always presupposes the synthesis that first yielded 
the concept in question. This clotting of fluent mental 
elements into more or less permanent complexes is a funda- 
mental psychologic process rather inadequately treated in the 
Critique. 

Elsewhere, as in his lectures, Kant gives another turn to 
this distinction, declaring that " the relation that results from 
analysis is logical, that results from synthesis is real," that is, 
objectively valid. Herewith we are reverted to the Humian 
distinction (dimly perceived by Locke) between demonstra- 
tive or conceptual knowledge of quantity and number, and 
empirical knowledge of matters of fact and existence (Enq. 
H.U., Part iii. of section xii.). It is the peculiarity of the 
former that it is the generation of the thinking spirit, which 
therein appears as something creative, as endowed with spon- 
taneous energy. This activity constitutes the originality, the 
productive power, the insight of the mathematician, the man 
of science, the critic, the philosopher. It shows itself in the 
formation of Concepts (Begriffbildung). Open any work of 
a creative mind, and you find its first self-appointed task is 
a sharp determination of certain regulative ideas, perhaps 
never before defined. Without recognising this originative 
function of the intellect, it seems impossible to understand 
the facts of individual daily life, or the facts of history, 
especially the discoveries of science. It is no less true in 
Science than in Religion that the spirit breathes where it will, 
and you hear its voice but know not whence it comes nor 
whither it goes. Precisely so is every original idea born of 
the spirit. 

The Concepts of the understanding are thus its own 
creations ("mathematical definitions make the concept itself," 
A 730), but yet not utterly unoccasioned. The provocation 
to the generation of these notions comes from without, from 



894 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

experience. Points, lines, circles, squares, spheres, planes, the 
whole arsenal of geometry, integers, rationals, irrationals, 
series, groups, sets, imaginaries, the endless artillery of arith- 
metic all these exist nowhere but in their definitions framed 
by the intellect to suit the intellect itself. Hence, en passant, 
the plausibility in the thesis of M. Le Roy, that science deals 
not with real facts, but facts of its own formation or deforma- 
tion. But experience has been full of suggestions of all 
this elaborate furniture of Reason. Nature has never shown 
us a point, but has studded the sky with stars ; nor a line, 
but has traversed the ether with rays ; nor a circle, but has 
suspended on high the full disc of the moon. An Alpine 
traveller asked a native : Do you know where X - is ? The 
native replied : No, but there's the path to it. Experience 
does not furnish exact concepts ; these she cannot attain, but 
she does point the path that leads to them. These indications 
are not always equally intelligible to all ; often her finger is so 
wrapt in mist that only the keenest eye can detect its token. 
Then again it shines out like the day, known and understood 
not only of all men, but even of the lower animals. The 
concepts once formed and precisely defined, their implications 
constitute a body of necessary consistencies, the mathematical 
content of the relevant doctrine. Whether or not we hold 
with Moore that " the world is formed of concepts," and that 
propositions are independent of any knowing mind, we must, 
it seems, admit that a proposition is, if not a complete concept, 
at least a synthesis of concepts. The necessity that character- 
ises mathematical doctrine is a purely logical necessity of the 
understanding in the synthetic manipulations of its concepts. 

But let us not wander too far from Kant and the ^Esthetic. 
Of prime importance in his mind is the proposition that all 
mathematical judgements are synthetic in his sense of the term. 
His favourite example, appearing twice in the Critik and also 
in the Prolegomena, is 7 + 5 = 12. This judgement, we are 
told, seems at first sight analytic, following from the concept 
of a sum by the Law of Contradiction, though in fact this 



KANT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS 895 

concept of sum contains naught but the union (as of 7 and 5) 
into one number without any thought of what that one number 
is ; the concept of 12 is by no means thought in thinking of 
7 and 5 as united, and no dissection can find this 12 contained 
in that sum. Intuition must be called in, as by counting 5 
(by the fingers) on to 7, when the number 12 is seen to arise. 
Paulsen, however, seems to think this judgement really analytic, 
and that this is clearly seen in the case of "3 and 10 are 13." 
" The universal axiom that lies at the basis of all arithmetic is 
that the sum of units is not altered by their transposition in 
the decimal system." But Paulsen does not seem to meet 
Kant on the latter's own ground ; he merely says, " As a matter 
of course we could not find in the first instance that the name 
of the sum of 7 and 5 was 12." Certainly ; but Kant says 
nothing about the name, he appeals to visual intuition as 
necessary to the predication. These primary additions have 
been much discussed and much misunderstood. Moore admits 
that " it is perhaps inconceivable to us now that two and two 
should not make four ; but, when numbers were first discovered, 
it may well have been thought that two and two made three or 
five." In the Essays by a Barrister, it is contended that 
" there is a (certain) world," and " in such a world two and two 
would make five." As even Paulsen does not seem to have 
come perfectly into the light, and even though "much has 
lately been said of Kant's celebrated instance" (Bosanquet), 
perhaps an additional word at this point may not be amiss. 

In the first place, it seems plain that both the name and 
the sign of the sum are indifferent. Whether we say twelve 
or Zwolf or dozen, whether the sign be 12 or XII or /x, has no 
significance. The point is, what do we mean by sum and 
what by twelve ? This may be made clear. Let it be assumed 
that we know what is meant by 1 and what by adding 1. 
Then we may define the sum of any two integers a and b by 
the equation a + b = (a + b'} + 1, where b = V + I. This defini- 
tion acquires meaning as soon as we know what is a + b f ; that 
is, we know what is meant by adding any integer as soon as 



896 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

we know what is meant by adding the next less integer ; or, 
better, as soon as we know what it is to add any integer, 
immediately we know what it is to add the next higher integer. 
We are supposed to know what we mean by the sum a + 1, 
hence we know what we mean by the sum a + 2, then by a + 3, 
and so on in infinitum. This is the simplest example of 
Recurrence, or the Fermatian Inference, which lies at the heart 
of all arithmetical reasoning, even at the heart of mathematics 
itself. As already observed, by what names and symbols we shall 
denote these numbers, thus successively defined, is purely arbi- 
trary. It seems, then, that there is no other way to generate the 
concept 12 than by the successive additions of 1, as in Kant's 
illustration. Twelve is merely the name for the integer sum 
attained by the successive additions of five units, starting from 
7. The summation yields the number arbitrarily named 12, 
which has no existence outside of this or some equivalent defin- 
ing summation. There is no independent concept of 12 that is 
compared and identified with the concept of the sum of 7 and 
5, as Kant would imply. Though 12 be defined as the sum of 
11 and 1, this 11 must then be defined as the sum of 10 and 1, 
so that we land on the definition of 12 as the sum of 7 and 5, not 
this sum "defined as 12" (Bosanquet's Logic, i., 100). But 
might not one hesitate for a moment in case of large numbers 
and ask, Is 798 + 985 = 1783 ? Certainly. Does not this then 
imply that the 1783 is not given as the sum of the other two, 
but that the two concepts, of the sum and the 1783, are 
actually compared and identified ? Kant refers with special 
confidence to the case of such large numbers, w r here, " turn and 
twist our concepts as we will, we can never, without help from 
intuition, by mere anatomy of our concepts find the sum." 
Only apparently is he right. The fact is, we express it in our 
denary system as a sum of four numbers : 1000 + 700 + 80 + 3. 
Now this sum is already familiar to us by the definition of 
sum, and we must, to be sure, verify whether this sum is the 
same by definition as the sum of 798 and 985. But it is 
precisely here that intuition would leave us in the lurch ; it 



KANT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS 897 

is precisely by the analysis (completed of course by synthesis, 
according to definition of addition) that Kant rejects that we 
are able to identify the two sums. True, there are many short 
cuts in the process, but it comes finally to this, that each sum 
is dissected into its constituent units ; at the bottom lies the 
uniform Fermatian Inference. 

However, there is yet a matter of importance in these 
additions. It is the assumption of the so-called Associative 
and Commutative Laws. These are expressed respectively by 
the formulas a 4- (b + c) = (a + b) + c and a + b = b + a. They are 
absolutely necessary to our arithmetic, being implicit in all its 
processes, and are proved rigorously by the same mathematical 
Johannes Factotum, the Fermatian Inference. The second 
law declares that the same number is attained in counting 
two sets continuously whichever set is counted first ; the other 
declares that in counting three sets the same result is attained 
whether we count the first two sets as one set and then the 
third set or the first set and then the other two considered as 
one set ; moreover, the two members of each equation may be 
used equivalently, to suit our convenience. Lipschitz, in his 
Analysis, appeals to inner intuition as the basis of these laws, 
but they are readily deduced from the definition of addition by 
employment of mathematical induction ; nor is it easy to see 
how inner intuition can here come into play, since in the 
counting of objects it is not an inner succession that we observe 
but rather an outer coexistence of which we make abstraction. 
From all of which we conclude that there is no warrant in 
Kant's example for his claim that intuition supplies a necessary 
addendum to the concept of sum in judgements involving 
addition. It is the Laws of Addition (and Multiplication), 
proved by recurrence, that fill such judgements as 7 + 5 = 12 
with meaning, both justifying and fructifying the equational 
calculus. 

But it must not be supposed that there is nothing a priori 
in this mathematical reasoning, because the alleged Kantian 
element evaporates. There remains, in fact, the root-assump- 

VOL. VII. No. 4. 57 



898 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

tion of the Fermatian Inference itself, which alone lends it 
wing for flight to infinity. The general form of this reasoning 
involves a universal major premiss of this form : If the 
proposition p holds for any value n of its variable, it holds for 
the next value n + 1. By trial it is then seen to hold (say) for 
the value 1 ; hence follows the endless sorites ; the impulse 
communicated by actual experiment to the first term in the 
series is transmitted thence to the second, thence to the third, 
and so on without stop, for ever. But how can any universal 
result be reached hereby? Can the mind actually carry on 
this process without end ? Certainly it does not do it. 
Schopenhauer says : " The intellect grows weary ; the will is 
never weary." But Poincare' holds that "the mind has a 
direct intuition of this power of indefinite repetition of the 
same act, when the act is once possible." " This rule (of 
reasoning by recurrence], inaccessible to analytic proof and to 
experiment, is the exact type of a priori synthetic intuition." 
Dedekind, on the other hand, has sought to prove this rule in a 
highly generalised form by an extremely ingenious argument 
depending upon his concept of a chain. Herewith he assumes 
that integers form the chain of an integer. Peano, on the other 
hand, assumes mathematical induction as axiomatic. Frege 
has treated the inference more profoundly, considering it is a 
special case of the " inheritance " of a property in a series. 
Keyser has discussed the matter very subtly in a series of 
memoirs. He analyses the views of Pomcard and Dedekind, 
discredits all attempts to prove that "infinity is," while 
admitting by a very fine distinction that "the number of 
numbers can be proved to be infinite," and maintains that in 
all pure logical process " infinitude is used " ; hence he pro- 
pounds his "Axiom of Infinity" a weighty contribution to 
logical theory. It is, he contends, in the very nature of a 
valid argument-form to transcend any and every finite universe 
of applicability. Russell, anticipating in a measure vol. ii. of 
his great work, professes to "prove the principle of mathe- 
matical induction," then that no finite number is the number 



KANT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS 899 

of finite numbers ; thence, since the definition of cardinal 
numbers implies the existence of the number of cardinal 
numbers, " the existence of infinite numbers is rigidly demon- 
strated." He further holds, against Keyser, that Dedekind's 
postulates indeed imply, but do not presuppose, the actual 
infinite ; and he quite rejects the psychology that finds in 
mathematical induction any implication of the mind's power 
endlessly to repeat the same act. Indeed, with him logic and 
mathematics are quite objective ; their implications are what 
they are quite irrespective of whether there be any mind to 
know them ; truth and the knowledge of truth are two and 
for ever two. On the contrary, says Poincare' : " All that is 
not thought is pure nothing ; ... to say there is something 
else than thought, is therefore an affirmation that can have no 
meaning " ; nous ne sortons pas de nous-memes, said Condillac. 

Amid so great a contrariety of expert testimony, it may 
be that the last word has not yet been spoken ; some other 
slightly modified view of the matter may not be excluded. 
One thing, however, seems manifest : the question is one that 
belongs to the understanding and not to the sensibility ; it is 
one of categories and not of intuitions. Whatever be the 
nature of the logical necessity under debate, even though it be 
given in " the inner sense whereby the mind (Gemuth) intuits 
itself or its inner condition," it is certainly not given in "a 
definite form, under which only the intuition of its (the soul's) 
inner condition is possible, so that all that pertains to the 
inner determination is presented in the relations of Time." 1 
What the infinite continuum of Time has to do with the dis- 
crete aggregate of integers, it is hard to see. The answer, that 
we can count only in time, seems irrelevant ; as well say that 
the degrees of longitude are possible only by virtue of the 
equator, on which they may be reckoned. That numbers 

1 In the best translations of the Critique, as Watson's and Mueller's, a 
sense-annulling error has crept in and maintained itself here : " es ist eine 
bestimmte Form " is rendered " It is the (or a) fixed form," where it must 
refer to the inner sense, which is impossible in the German. Of course, es ist 
means not " it is" but "there is, 1 ' as Meiklejohn translates correctly. 



900 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

(especially integers) are derived from the intuition of Time 
seems to be a mere assertion made to complement the more 
plausible contention that Geometry reposes on the intuition of 
(Euclidean) space. That the time-form of inner intuition in 
any way conditions or validates the existence or properties of 
the class of integers, is a proposition yet to be proved or 
approved to the understanding. 

So far, then, as Arithmetic is concerned, it appears that 
neither its basis nor its logical procedure is disclosed in the 
Critique of Pure Reason. Nor is this strange, since those 
were the precritical days of mathematics, when indeed its 
skirts were widened with amazing rapidity, but when the 
inventive spirit was too busied with its own majestic creations, 
objectively considered, to give thought to the anatomy of its 
processes, when the upbuilding went bravely on while the 
foundations remained unexamined, if indeed not unlaid. 

However, it is mainly in connection with geometry, as the 
doctrine of Space, that Kant's name is associated with mathe- 
matics. With the best will in the world he sought to maintain 
the unimpeachable objective validity of the eldest of the 
Sciences against every suspicion of scepticism, and this by 
showing that its subject-matter, Space, was "not an actual 
existence, not merely a determination (to be sure) or even 
relation of things, yet such as would belong to them in them- 
selves even unintuited, but such as attaches only to the form 
of intuition, and hence to the subjective constitution of our 
mind, but for which (form and constitution) it could not be 
predicated of anything at all." 

In support thereof Kant advances five arguments. Of these 
the first and second aim to prove that Space-presentation is 
not empirical but a priori : the first, indirectly, from its priority; 
the second, directly, from its necessity. With these arguments, 
as being psychological or epistemological, we have at present 
nothing to do. Arguments (4) and (5) should be given in 
Kant's own words : 

" (4) Space is not a discursive or so-called general concept 



KANT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS 901 

of relations of things in general, but a pure intuition. For 
first, we can imagine only one single space, and in speaking of 
many spaces we mean thereby only parts of one and the same 
unital space. Nor can these parts precede the one single all- 
including space, as if they were its constituents whence it 
might be compounded, but they can be thought only as within 
it. Space is essentially single ; the manifold in it, hence too 
the general concept of spaces in general, rests solely on limi- 
tations. Hence it follows that in regard to it an a priori 
intuition (which is non-empirical) must lie at the base of all 
concepts of the same [spaces A, space B]. Accordingly, all 
geometrical principles, as that two sides of a triangle are 
together greater than the third, can never be deduced from 
general concepts of line and triangle, but from intuition, and 
in fact a priori with apodictic certainty. 

" (5 A) Space is presented given as an infinite magnitude. 
A general concept of space (common alike to a foot and an ell) 
can determine nothing in regard to magnitude. Were it not 
for the illimitability in the progress of intuition, no concept of 
relations would ever imply a principle of infinity in them. 

" (5 B) Space is presented as an infinite given magnitude. 
True it is, we must think every concept as an idea 
(Vorstellung) contained in an infinite multitude of different 
possible ideas (as their common mark) and therefore contain- 
ing them under it ; but no concept, as such, can be thought 
as containing an infinite multitude of ideas in it. However, 
space is thought thus (for all parts of space coexist in 
infinituni). Hence the original idea of space is intuition 
a priori and not conception." 

Argument (4) seems to consist of two arguments, half- 
fused together, and one confirmation. The first pivots on 
the uniqueness of space: "spatium . . . non est nisi unicum" 
There is only one space even as there is only one God, as 
the Critique of Judgement reminds us ; all part-spaces are 
only space-parts. This notion harks back to Spinoza's One 
Infinite Substance and recalls even the Plenum, the One of 



902 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Parmenides. The suppressed major would state that every 
concept contains under it a countless number of possible 
determinations as examples ; space contains no such ; there- 
fore, etc. a valid syllogism in Camcstres. Amplifying his 
reply to the possible objection that we yet speak of spaces, 
as of the various rooms in a building, Kant introduces 
secondly the notion of the unitality of space : it is an 
analytic, not a synthetic, whole ; the parts are not set 
together to make it up, they are themselves delimited in it, 
cut out of it; the whole is first, the parts afterwards. It 
might be interesting to note that Kant has elsewhere con- 
tradicted all this flatly and repeatedly. Thus, under " Axioms 
of Intuition" (A 162, B 203-4) we find "extensive magni- 
tude," as space and time, defined as "that in which the 
presentation of the parts makes possible (and therefore 
necessarily precedes) the presentation of the whole." Simi- 
larly in the noteworthy notes at B 136 and 160, which seem 
to loose the bands of these arguments of the ^Esthetic. 
At A 505 we meet with a " decomposing synthesis," and 
cease thenceforth to wonder. 

With the endless strife over these matters we have naught 
to do, but Kant's major premiss recalls the second paragraph 
of Riemann's Habilitationsschrift, " Ueber die Hypothesen, 
welche der Geometric zu Grunde liegen." The obscurity that 
has hung over the fundamental presuppositions of Geometry 
Riemann refers to the fact that the general concept of multiply 
extended magnitudes has not been worked out. Hence he 
proposes to himself the problem of constructing this concept 
out of more general concepts of magnitude, in the course of 
which construction it turns out that space is only a special 
case of a triply extended magnitude. Into the details of 
Riemann's analysis we need not enter here ; his epoch-making 
monograph is easily accessible. The important point is that it 
meets the fourth Kantian argument directly by showing that 
space is precisely what Kant held it was not, namely, itself a 
concept admitting of special determinations, and also a special 



KANT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS 903 

determination of a more general concept. We are altogether 
justified in speaking of several spaces of three dimensions (not 
all parts of the same space) and also of all of these as species 
of the broader genus of n-fold extents or spaces. If someone 
replies that these " vast and desert spaces " are figments of the 
mathematical fancy, and that Kant is speaking of the solitary 
ever-unital space of experience, the answer is that Kant has 
not indeed distinguished in modern wise between perceptual 
and conceptual space ; nevertheless, it is the space of geometry 
of which he is speaking, as the illustration from the sides of a 
triangle shows. It is only in this space that the necessity (on 
which Kant insists) of geometrical relations holds, and it is this 
space that forms one of many in the Riemannian theory. We 
must conclude, then, that the march of thought has at this point 
transcended the Kantian argument. 

In (5), in both A and B, the term "given" has been an 
objective point of attack, both early and recent, from Kastner 
to Hartmann. It was at once perceived that space was not 
"given" by intuition as infinite, a criticism that Kant and 
Kantians have in vain sought to evade. It was confessed that 
" given " should have been " thought," whereby, however, a 
change of venue was taken from Sensibility to Understanding. 
Indeed, Kant himself, in the Critique of Judgement, section 26, 
speaks of the infinite as being " thought given " (gegeben 
gedacht) ! But even the emenders have not themselves 
doubted that space was infinite, at least in thought, so we need 
pause no longer on the point. 

The force or reference of the term " infinite " seems not to 
be the same in A and B. In the former it is explained in 
the " boundlessness of the march of intuition." This term 
" boundlessness " must not mislead us. Since Kant repeatedly 
speaks of space as infinite, there can be no doubt that he 
means as much here and means nothing else. The fact that 
intuition marches forward for ever to remoter and remoter 
regions, beyond the stars and nebulae and the flaming ram- 
parts of the world, without any suggestion of stop or stay, 



904 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

meant for him the strict extensive infinity of space. But in 
B, though space is still infinite, nothing is argued therefrom ; 
instead, we find a neat syllogism in Cesare : no concept con- 
tains in itself an infinite multitude of ideas ; but space does ; 
therefore space is no concept. All the weight of this great 
argument rests upon the word in as distinguished from under. 
Such a fulcrum does not inspire perfect confidence, especially 
on remembering that Kant reiterates elsewhere that space is 
a concept of the Understanding, and even an idea of Reason, 
instead of an intuition of the Sensibility ; thus " Space with- 
out Matter is no object of perception, and nevertheless it is a 
necessary concept of reason, therefore naught else than a bare 
Idea." But we must look at the major in this Cesare, for 
which Kant does not offer any proof, neither do his continua- 
tors. Is it self-evident ? On the contrary, a multiply infinite 
series is surely a concept, yet it does contain in it an infinite 
multitude of presentations ; yes, even of concepts, for it is 
made up of infinite series, each of which is a concept. Now 
what is space (at least for the geometer) but such a triply 
infinite series ? What is geometry but the doctrine of such 
series ? 

Though commentators prefer this B form of the argument 
(4), the A form repudiated by Kant himself seems far better, 
as Adickes perceives. The " boundless progress of intuition " 
is a new and valuable element of thought, and does seem at 
first to make the space-form coextensive with the universe. 
In fact, this very infinitude really underlies the preceding 
argument, though not mentioned therein. Here, then, we 
must raise the question whether this admitted boundlessness 
really implies infinity ; we must draw the Riemannian distinc- 
tion between infinite and unbounded, and therewith the 
Riemannian conclusion : " The unboundedness of space pos- 
sesses a greater empirical certitude than any other external 
experience. From it, however, the infinity by no means 
follows. On the contrary, if bodies be supposed independent 
of position, and hence the space's measure of curvature 



KANT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS 905 

constant, then the space becomes finite whenever this measure 
is positive, no matter how small." It is indeed apparent that 
a circle and a sphere are altogether unbounded, though both 
are finite. A caterpillar will crawl round all day on the rim 
of a tub, an ant may scurry about for ever, and " work as hard 
as adamant," over an eggshell, without let or hindrance. At 
every instant intuition builds up round the subject an un- 
bounded triple manifold, a three - way spread of possible 
positions, which he carries about with him always, the vast 
envelope of perceptual space. Herein lies an important im- 
plication as to the internal relations of the extensive elements 
involved, but none as to the Unity or infinity of the extent as 
a whole. For all we know, "this brave, o'erhanging firma- 
ment," this radiant cocoon of the soul, may measure just so 
many cubic miles. Accordingly, whatsoever support this 
fifth consideration may ever have lent to the Kantian position, 
has now disappeared. 

The third argument is omitted from the second edition, 
but its essential idea is emphatically reproduced in the 
addendum, section 3, " Trancendental Discussion of the Con- 
cept of Space" a surprising expression this (though often 
recurrent) in a work that devotes so many syllogisms to 
proving that space is not a concept. In this very section 3 
Kant insists that space " must be intuition ; for from a bare 
concept no propositions reaching beyond it can be drawn, 
which, nevertheless, takes place in geometry " ; and further- 
more he urges the apodicticity of all geometric propositions 
as proof that they are not experiential, precisely as in argu- 
ment (3) of the first edition. This latter, then, is genuine 
Kantian thought, and its omission is a part of that mutilation 
which most readers must keenly regret. But what is this 
argument? That the axioms of geometry, as (1) that no 
two straight lines can meet in more than one point ; (2) that 
the straight line is the shortest distance between two points ; 
(3) that space has three [and only three] dimensions, are not 
derived from experience, being necessary and universal, and 



906 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

hence must be a priori, given in the form of perception by 
the external sense. To these he might and should have added 
(4) the famous parallel-postulate of Euclid, about which 
longer and more desperate battle has been waged than ever 
around the walls of windy Troy. Now, as to (2), it may 
suffice to quote a word from Poincare', that " it will be possible 
to deduce it from the other two," (1) and (4), nor is it 
numbered among Hilbert's Foundations. As to (3), we have 
already seen that Riemann's conception of the manifold 
legitimises spaces, and therewith their geometries, of any 
number of dimensions. Nevertheless, Kant might insist that 
the actual space of perception is for all that still precisely what 
it is, namely, of three dimensions, and that this is an ultimate, 
elementary, irresoluble datum of intuition. This we might 
admit provisionally without prejudging any theory as to the 
genesis of the space perception or the explanation of its tri- 
dimensionality. But this perceptual space is not the subject- 
matter of geometry, but conceptual space, wherein (for special 
determinations) the axioms hold and apply. But herein, as 
is now well known, they do not hold, save as assumptions. 
Rejection of them does not lead (like rejection of the 
principle of recurrence or the Axiom of Infinity) to any 
contradiction or absurdity, but to a thoroughly self- consistent, 
internally coherent body of geometric theorems. Not only 
have no developments thus far disclosed any disharmony 
in the Lobachevskian geometry (which rejects the Euclidean 
postulate of parallels), but it is idle to think that any 
such disharmony can exist ; for if there did, its correlative 
discord would equally vitiate all Euclidean geometry, since the 
two geometries are reflections of one another, corresponding 
term by term, proposition by proposition, as Beltrami has 
ingeniously taught us. Likewise vain it were to seek for any 
inner strife in Riemann's geometries (resulting from setting 
aside axiom 1). Any such strife, did it exist, would bring 
immediate ruin to the common Euclidean doctrine of the 
sphere. The coequality of the four geometries is one of the 



KANT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS 907 

best assured results of human thinking. They stand on pre- 
cisely the same logical footing, nor does it seem possible that 
any experiment should lay bare any ground of preference. 

The Euclidean does, indeed, enjoy a certain uniqueness. 
There may be infinitely many Riemannian and Lobachevskian 
spaces according to the varying positive or negative value of 
the space- constant ; but there can be only one Euclidean 
space, for the curvature 0. This Euclidean is then a single 
critical space between two sets of spaces, a kind of limit or 
border, exactly as the parabola, with eccentricity 1, is a single 
critical curve, a border or limit (always of the same shape) 
between two sets of conies, ellipses and hyperbolas, varying 
widely in shape with varying eccentricities. But this circum- 
stance gives the Euclidean no degree of logical precedence 
over the other spaces, even as the parabola enjoys none over 
its neighbour curves. Nevertheless, all such limits and critical 
forms have undoubtedly a peculiar interest generally connected 
with remarkable simplification of properties. An example is 
the unique parallel in the Euclidean plane, with the resulting 
unique value of the sum of angles in a plane triangle. 

Such uniqueness gives the Euclidean space-form an 
especial economical value. As a working hypothesis this 
form is not indeed indispensable, but quite inestimable. Hence 
its universal adoption by geometers, and the adjustment of 
all interpretations of experience to its properties. None the 
less it remains and must remain an extremely important 
special case, on a dead level in logic with its peers. The 
axioms that characterise its geometry are no way necessary 
though every way needful. Kant was right in maintaining 
that they were not deducible from experience, and in 
supposing that some intuition of space would be needed to 
explain their necessity ; but no such necessity exists. These 
assumptions, along with their consequences, are neither a priori 
forms nor empirical data; they are neither true nor false; 
they are conventions, perfectly consistent and incomparably 
convenient. Herewith then the modern metageometry gives 



908 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the coup de grace to the Kantian argument for the purely 
subjective and intuitional character of space, but only in so 
far as that argumentation depends on geometric considerations. 

Elsewhere (A 712-38) Kant has contrasted the philo- 
sopher's with the mathematician's procedure, the latter 
appealing to intuition (in constructing its concepts by figures 
or by algebraic symbols), as in proving the fifth proposition of 
Euclid. Unquestionably, such an appeal may be made, and 
often most successfully. Especially is it useful for the dis- 
covery of new relations and the illumination of the whole 
situation. But it is not therefore necessary. Such construc- 
tion is an invaluable cane, but not an indispensable crutch. 
Intuitions would even befog or pervert the sight of Reason 
in its beatific vision, did they not fall away like scales from 
the eyes of that Speculator spiritalis Quasi seraphim sub alis. 
The theorems of geometry are the implications of its con- 
ceptual apparatus, attending the most high behest of definitions 
and postulates. Its reasoning differs no whit from other 
reasoning in the movement of the understanding, and its 
superior rigour is due to the superior precision with which its 
concepts are defined. One and the same formal necessity 
invests every system of valid deductions from a body of 
premisses exactly definable ; it inheres not in the particular 
matter of the thought, but in its universal manner. Hence 
it cannot be given by any intuition, by any form of sense 
either external or internal. In so far as this necessity is 
subjective at all, in so far as it is felt, it belongs to the motions 
of the intellect in the contemplation of its own ideal creations. 

Accordingly, it is a fascinating problem for the mathe- 
matical logician to determine the minimum of compatible 
and mutually independent elements and assumptions from 
which a particular geometry, as the Euclidean, is deducible. 
In the bud as thus determined lies infolded the whole 
Ygdrasil-tree of that geometry, from its deepest rootlet to its 
highest spray. Another question would concern the exact 
definability of concepts and in what regions it obtains. Still 



KANT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS 909 

another would be, why has the mind adopted the peculiar 
assumptions of the parabolic geometry and organised its ex- 
perience in accordance therewith ? An answer has already 
been given, that these assumptions are by far the most con- 
venient ; but we may still ask, Why choose the most con- 
venient ? The answer would seem to be that just as the 
interchanges of kinetic and potential energy, constituting the 
cosmic process, while conserving the total energy (or total 
something), take place according to the Law of Least Action, 
so, too, some certain minimum is momently realised in the 
operations of mind. If the parallel of psychical and physical 
series be complete, there must be some psychical correspond- 
ence to such a universal principle as that of Least Action. 
When a structure in equilibrium is subjected to external 
forces it responds by a system of small strains throughout it, 
which develop a system of the least stresses that will balance 
the external forces. Hertz, rejecting the notion of force, 
admitting only Time, Space, Mass as fundamental, supposed 
invisible bonds connecting (say) n points, having 3n co- 
ordinates ; these latter he conceived as co-ordinates of a single 
point (in a 3w-space), which the bonds confined to movement 
in some space less than 3n-fo\d ; then, that this motion would 
always be on shortest or straightest paths, would be the one 
principle of mechanics. We see that this view also involves 
a minimum, and without a minimum-principle, no rational 
mechanics. We may assume that some analogue obtains in 
the psychic world, that in the presence and by virtue of any 
body of experience the mind reacts somewhat as the strained 
structure or the Hertzian point, adjusting itself with some 
minimal departure from previous constitution. Some such 
law of least aberrance would seem to show itself in the 
organisation of our experience, in the assumptions to which 
intelligence has been guided, and even in the process of 
Induction, in eagerly and often hastily passing from particulars 
to universals. Not only would it seem to be active in this 
disposition to generalise, in a certain unmistakable impatience 



910 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of exceptions, but no less in the impulse to revert to the major 
premiss, to assume the matter in hand under some wider 
concept, wherein lies the subtle charm of the syllogism. 

In conclusion, if mathematical inquiry has poured abundant 
water into the wine of Kant's argumentation, it must not be 
inferred that his doctrine is thereby wholly and irremediably 
invalidated. It does indeed smack of ingratitude, that the 
science in whose defence he undertook his deep research should 
be the first to renounce his guardianship and repudiate his 
procedures. He might exclaim with Mare'chal Villars, " De- 
fend me from my friends." But Kant himself knew as well 
and proclaimed as clearly as any man that the false must be 
cleared away to make room for the true, be it knowledge or 
faith. Throughout the ^Esthetic he seems to argue like a man 
upon whom a great dawn had arisen, but whose eyes were not yet 
quite adjusted to the light. He seems to be seeking for some 
sure and satisfactory syllogism, which in the end he does not 
find, but of whose existence he has no doubt. Hence the 
prevailing unclearness, the endless reiterations, and the con- 
tradictions, the hall-mark of genius. The service that Kant 
has rendered to philosophy is not depreciated by recognising 
that here and there his thought has failed of the high mark set 
before it. Discovery is one thing, rigorous proof is quite 
another, a fact that even mathematics frequently and brilliantly 
exemplifies. By some sudden sublation the spirit finds itself 
transported to airy and inaccessible heights : how it knows not, 
nor the way by which it came ; it is the long and toilsome task 
of criticism to explore the mid-lying territory and with engin- 
eering skill to construct a firm and infallible highroad that shall 
conduct thither, step by step, the plodding feet of uninspired 
intelligence. Kant attained the mountain summit, whence he 
beheld the world as his idea ; we thank him for the message 
and the call from above, even though he points to no sure path 
of ascent. 

WILLIAM BENJAMIN SMITH. 

NEW ORLEANS. 



DISCUSSIONS 

N.B. The contributions under this heading refer to matters previously 
treated in the "Hibbert Journal." Reviews of books are not open 
to discussion. Criticism of any article will, as a rule, be limited to a 
single issue of the Journal. The discussion ends with a reply from 
the original writer. -Ed. 

THE INSUFFICIENCY OF SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS AS 
A MORAL IDEAL. 

(Hibbert Journal, April 1909, p. 596.) 

ALTHOUGH Principal Forsyth deals with the above subject in the able 
manner usual to his handling of all topics, yet he seems, to me as a worker, 
to lack that wider experience of the workaday world of which I may 
perhaps be allowed to have a more intimate acquaintance. Otherwise, I 
take it, he would not ask publicly why it is that those who seek for a 
readjustment of social evils ignore the theologian, as such. 

If it were possible for him to step out of his present environment and 
mix with those who have to encounter the evils in their crudeness, and 
who, with the overweight of opposing forces, look around for assistance, 
he would perhaps understand why the mere religionist has been left 
severely alone. 

It is quite true that " humanity cannot explain itself," but humanity 
is beginning to see that to talk of spiritual forces in an academic manner, 
while ignoring, or acquiescing in, material evils of the present time, is much 
the same as a man professing to love God, whom he has not seen, while he 
hates his brother, who is continually before him. 

I quite agree with Dr Forsyth that a deeper working basis for the 
reformation of society is required than a mere demand for social order ; 
but why have the men professing to hold this deeper basis separated 
themselves from the movement in its practical issues ? I am aware that 
there have been and are notable exceptions, but these have invariably been 
subject either to misunderstanding, or regarded as intellectual inferiors, 
or in some other way sneered at. 

The whole righteousness of the universe may not be exhausted in 
human justice, but surely it is our first duty, if we have any realisation at 
all of the unity of mankind, to organise the completest scheme of social 
justice possible. It appears to me that Dr Forsyth inverts the position at 

911 



912 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

this point: the injustice to God is not brought about by the ignoring of 
Himself, but by our neglect of the duty which He has laid nearest to our 
hands. Or does he mean to argue that God thinks more highly of the 
man who prays, and does nothing more (except perhaps live in comfort 
himself), than of him who prays not, in the orthodox manner, but whose 
inner being is stirred by the hardness of the lot of the multitude ? 

From page 601 onwards Dr Forsyth adopts a more controversial tone, 
and girds at those who " can sit down under such an arrest of thought " as 
he appears to think they have accepted ; but this seems to imply that he 
and those other theologians who accept his views have gone beyond this 
experience, and have reached ulterior heights; but if so, where are the 
tracks of their passage ? To what extent are the workers indebted to 
them ? We presume their weight has made some pressure on the social 
inadequacies of the time. Where is it ? You can only test a pudding by 
eating it, to use a homely phrase ; but not many of the plums have come 
our way. He then confronts us, presumably as a defender of the 
egotist or capitalist, and asks, if our moral standard is no higher than 
theirs, how we can dare to request an alteration in the present condition of 
things ; but surely, apart from moral order, about which there seems to be 
some confusion of thought, on purely economic grounds the worker has 
a right to demand that the capitalist, etc., shall not keep man from his 
" social paradise." 

Granted that a little more inward-looking would be beneficial all 
round, you can have too much of it, and by becoming absorbed in yourself 
may forget to look around. This has been the case, unfortunately, with 
the theologian, as such : hence the reason why he has not been consulted 
on the question of social righteousness. 

H. O. MONTAGUE. 
SOUTH NORWOOD. 



THE SOCIAL CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE. 

(Hibbert Journal, January and April 1909-) 

As one who, actively engaged within the ranks of the Socialist Party, 
endeavours also to follow the expressions of the movement in literary and 
religious circles, I read the above article with considerable interest. All 
that Miss Scudder says of the narrow, selfish character of the social life of 
to-day, and of the great advance that would be achieved by the realisation 
of the socialist ideal, is most admirable, and probably no socialist would 
hesitate to endorse it. But when she deals with the lines on which the 
advance is to be carried out, with the means by which " the social con- 
science of the future " is to be prepared and brought to life, the argument 
seems to rest upon a very inadequate conception of the forces that are 
moving society towards socialism. 

According to Miss Scudder, it would appear that, instead of all changes 



DISCUSSIONS 913 

in social morality being the result of changes in the economic basis of 
society, as the economic interpretation of history would have us believe, 
socialism itself can only be successfully achieved if a certain moral prepara- 
tion has been undergone ; if the majority of mankind has managed by 
voluntary self-discipline " to endue " itself, as far as in it lies, " with the 
new Adam, who can thrive in the socialist state to be." I do not mean 
that Miss Scudder fails to recognise that only after socialism has been 
established can the new social ethics find proper expression. But owing to 
her inadequate estimate of the economic and political factors which are by 
themselves sufficient to introduce the new order of society, she feels it necessary 
to call in the aid of another factor, a spiritual training by which all classes 
shall learn to relinquish the selfish privileges of present society, and develop 
" the new social intuitions." On pages 318-319 we read : "The slow but 
sure growth of the working people in class-consciousness, and their entrance 
on political power, the consolidation of industry, the spread of social com- 
punction " (the italics are mine) " all point the same way." Here we find 
the real causes of the socialist movement, economic and political in 
character, coupled with " the spread of social compunction," to which equal 
importance is apparently attached, and which is, I suppose, considered to 
be an expression of a moral preparation for socialism. But what is this 
spread of social compunction ? Can any example of it Ife pointed out 
which will show it to be the result of a moral or spiritual discipline by 
which individuals or classes voluntarily surrender any privilege for the 
good of the whole community? Does not every so-called advance of 
social compunction result from a hitherto oppressed section securing 
sufficient power to throw off its bonds ? Factory legislation came into 
operation, not at the suggestion of an enlightened social conscience, but 
by the demand of the working classes, prompted by their class interests. 
Similarly, without the need of any aid from a special moral or spiritual 
discipline, " the consolidation of industry " and the growth of the working 
classes to power and to a recognition of their own class interests will effect 
the change to socialism. Not until that change is an accomplished fact 
can we look for any real progress in social ethics ; and then not upon lines 
properly described as self-sacrifice for the common good, for the interest 
of the individual will have become identical with the interest of the 
community. 

The erroneous idea that a moral self-disciplinary preparation is necessary 
seems to have its root in a belief that it is possible and necessary to convert 
the privileged classes to socialism. On p. 320 we are told that socialism 
would bring with it a "penetrating discipline" for "those privileged 
classes the members of which do so very much like to suit themselves " ; 
and throughout the article there is an assumption that these classes are 
open to an appeal to voluntarily relinquish their class privileges, and that 
on their response to this appeal, and active co-operation, the success of the 
socialist movement depends. The reorganisation is to be achieved " not 
by the self-assertion of the poor but by the self-knowledge of all " (pre- 
VOL. VII, No. 4. 58 



914 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

sumably all classes) " working together " (p. 324). If this were true I 
should say with Miss Scudder that socialism indeed requires for its success 
a change in human nature. Penetrating would need to be the discipline 
by which the privileged classes, whilst they remain privileged, could be 
brought to recognise the superiority of a social organisation in which they 
would be so no longer ! But to anyone engaged in the actual battle for 
socialism, coming in contact with these same privileged classes, and 
observing their unerring instinct to act and resist as their class interests 
dictate, such an assumption is absurd. Can one conceive of the feudal 
lords responding to an appeal to surrender their hereditary rights and 
privileges and prepare themselves for the rough and strenuous struggle 
for wealth ? Yet Miss Scudder's appeal is for an even greater renunciation. 
She may reply that no harm can be done by making the appeal ; that already 
socialism numbers many adherents outside the working classes, and that 
many more may be made. I agree, and fully recognise the value to the 
socialist movement of the special assistance which converts from the privi- 
leged classes are in a position to render, and have rendered. But it should 
always be made quite clear that the sacrifice of class interests can only be 
expected from individuals, not from classes as such; and that the only 
force adequate and necessary to realise socialism is that very " self-assertion 
of the poor" which Miss Scudder thinks so little of, but which, when 
defined as the " growth of the working people in class-consciousness and 
their entrance on political power," she is bound to take account of. Until 
the working classes, by emancipating themselves and establishing socialism, 
have given the death-blow to all forms of class rule and class privilege, it is 
idle to expect a development of the new social intuitions. 

In the second portion of her article Miss Scudder anticipates the 
foregoing criticism, and endeavours to forestall it by making concessions 
some of which are strangely inconsistent with the expressions and implica- 
tions of her general argument. The class war, for instance, is admitted 
to be a stern fact, present in every factory, evident in every act of 
oppression, strike, and lock-out. But it is apparent that, by the class war, 
Miss Scudder means something very much more limited than the full 
bearing of the words as understood by socialists. In the view of Marx 
and his followers, the class war is much more than a name for strikes and 
other instances of what Miss Scudder calls guerilla warfare. The part 
assigned by the doctrine to the working classes is that of bringing the 
class war itself to an end by the overthrow of capitalism ; and if one may 
judge from history, no moral transformation of the capitalist class will 
prevent its opposition lasting to the bitter end. Indeed, if Miss Scudder 
believes in economic determinism, as she appears to do in a half-hearted 
way, she must see that no such moral transformation is possible whilst class 
privilege exists. Hence the futility of her appeal to the Christian Church 
to prevent a revolution by bringing about an understanding between the 
two camps. 

H. W. INKPIN. 



DISCUSSIONS 915 

THE OVER-EMPHASIS OF SIN. 

(Hibbert Journal, April 1909, p. 6 14.) 

IN his lively if somewhat bold article on the above subject, the Rev. 
Alexander Brown is quite correct in saying that the Church is alarmed at 
" the decadent sense of sin " that now exists. With a less acute conscious- 
ness of sin, the religious exercises of confession and repentance are rendered 
less necessary, so that it is no matter for surprise if " the Sunday assemblies 
are visibly diminishing quantities." 

To this extent I am with the writer, but I cannot follow him in his 
sweeping accusations against the pulpit, and his interpretation of sin. 

Firstly, his picture of the Evangelical preacher, it seems to me, is over- 
drawn. This type of preacher is not so common as he supposes. The 
descendants of Thomas Shepherd and Jonathan Edwards in our day are 
conspicuous by their fewness. For better or for worse, Evangelicalism of 
the austere type is among the things of the past. Witness the sermons of 
our foremost preachers. Savage denunciations and harsh austerities have 
given way to suave, amiable, compromising oratory. We are more accus- 
tomed to the cooings of the dove than the thunders of Sinai. 

Mr Brown, in an instructive way, enumerates some of the causes which, 
as he thinks, have led to the decadent sense of sin ; such as the conception 
of evolution, the influence of heredity and environment, the growth of 
wealth, and the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God. It is a pity he 
happens to argue the over-emphasis of sin ; otherwise, if he saw things with 
my eyes, he might have numbered among the causes another, viz., the 
mwfer-emphasis of sin ; for is there not a tendency, in a soft and con- 
ciliatory pulpit, to deaden the consciences of the congregation? But, 
secondly, in order to make good his main thesis, he is not content with 
merely accounting for the " decadent sense of sin, 11 but proceeds with vigour 
to justify it. He appears to me, in substance, to maintain that the sense 
of sin and sin itself move pari passu. Can that be so as a matter of fact ? 
If the sense of sin is less acute, does it follow that sin itself is less ? One 
must have courage to answer in the affirmative. 

Mr Brown speaks smooth things unto us. Failings which old-fashioned 
people would regard as sins he calls by soft names. Note the epithets, 
" amiable shortcomings, 11 " exaggerations, 11 " mistakes, 11 " blunders, 11 " native 
forces, 11 " faultiness. 11 I envy Mr Brown's optimistic view of sins and 
sinners, but I have grave doubts as to the correctness of his perspective. 
Human nature, unfortunately, is not so clean and innocent a thing as he 
would have us think it is. 

Notwithstanding the growth of knowledge and the change in theo- 
logical thought, sin is still sin, and human nature remains a poor thing. 
Horace could say, Vitiis nemo sine nascitur. Kant, keenest of observers, 
bewailed the radical taint of human nature, whether in its pagan or cultured 
state. Sainthood is proverbially characterised by an acute consciousness 
of sin. Newman felt it more and more as he advanced in life. 



916 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

The world is obviously advancing, but then the ideal of human perfection 
is constantly receding into the distance. The gulf between the real and 
the ideal always staggers us. Says Kant, " When one stands on a higher 
step of morality he sees farther before him, and his judgment on what men 
are as compared with what they ought to be is more strict. Our self- 
blame is, consequently, more severe the more steps of morality we have 
already ascended in the whole course of the world's history as known 
to us" (Abbott, Ethics, p. 326). 

JAMES EVANS. 
BRECON. 



MATHEMATICS AND THEOLOGY. 

(Hibbert Journal, January 1909, p. 370.) 

I HAVE read Professor Keysets able and thoughtful papers on the bearing of 
the mathematical theory of infinity on theology with deep interest. With 
much of what he says I am in entire sympathy ; but as his views on mathe- 
matical infinity (like the views of mathematicians in general) clash with 
those I have made known in Mmd (October 1906), in my Symbolic Logic 
(Longmans), and in my Man's Origin, Destiny, and Duty (Williams & Nor- 
gate), he will, I hope, bear with me while I point out what appears to me 
to be a serious flaw in the fundamental principle upon which his argument 
is founded. He will kindly remember that I am not so much criticising 
his theory or its theological application as combating an almost universally 
accepted mathematical axiom. 

Reasoning logically from this axiom or definition, Professor Keyser 
arrives (p. 381) at the conclusion that 

" By virtue of this equality of whole and part, the whole is said to be infinite, 
and it follows, of course, that the adjective applies to the equal part as well." 

On turning over the page we read that 

"A collection, class, set, group, aggregate, ensemble, manifold, or multi- 
tude of elements ... is infinite if and only if the collection, like the ensemble 
of points on a sphere, contains a part or sub-collection that is numerically 
equal to the whole." 

Other modern mathematicians, following the same principle, assert that 

" If a finite number or ratio be subtracted from an infinite number or 
ratio, the infinity remains undiminished." 

Now, surely a definition, axiom, or linguistic convention that leads to 
such paradoxes as these should give us pause. The difficulties which 
admittedly surround our conception of the infinite are in part at least due 
to the ambiguity of the infinity-symbol oo, which mathematicians use some- 
times as the inverse or reciprocal of an infinitesimal, and sometimes as the 
formal or symbolic inverse of zero. Let H denote a real infinite number 

TT "I 

or ratio, and let h denote a real infinitesimal ratio. Then -y and j- are real 



DISCUSSIONS 917 

infinities ; their reciprocals -^ and ^ are real infinitesimals ; while y and 
Q are unreal ratios which have only formal or symbolic existence. If be 

considered as equivalent to y, and oo as equivalent to -, then should be 

considered as a pseudo-infinity, and not as a real infinity. The tangent 
and the secant of a right angle, for example, are not real but pseudo- 
infinities. A real infinity must, like all real ratios, have a really existing 
denominator as well as a really existing numerator. 

But, so far, I have defined neither the infinite nor the infinitesimal. 
My definitions are as follows : 

(1) A number or ratio, positive or negative, is said to be infinite when 
it is too large numerically to be expressed, either exactly or approximately, 
in any arithmetical system of notation. 

(2) A ratio, positive or negative, is said to be infinitesimal when it is 
too small numerically to be expressed, either exactly or approximately, in 
any arithmetical system of notation. 

For example, let M denote a million. The number M M (the millionth 
power of a million), though immeasurably large so large that the ratio 
of the volume of the earth to the volume of a drop of water would be 
negligible in comparison is nevertheless finite and not infinite, because it 
can be expressed numerically in the decimal notation by simply substitut- 
ing 1,000,000 for M. Similarly, its reciprocal 1/M M , though immeasurably 
small, is still finite and not infinitesimal. 

We may thus have many infinities, H v H^ H &9 etc., any of which may 
have any ratio, finite or infinite, to any other ; and also many infinitesi- 
mals, ftp A 2 , & 3 , etc., any of which may have any ratio, finite or infinite, to 
any other. Thus, if 7^ denote any finite ratio, we may have H 1 F=H^ 
in which H% is less than H l ; but we cannot consistently have H 1 F=H l , 
nor H 2 FH Z . Similarly, we cannot consistently assert FH l = H 1 , or 
FH 2 = H<p except when jF=l. 

These definitions of the infinite and of the infinitesimal are self- 
consistent, and will therefore tend to no needless paradoxes in any system 
of geometry that adopts them. Any " non-Euclidean " system of geometry 
that assumes the possible falsity of any of Euclid's axioms must, in my 
opinion, be founded on an erroneous principle. 

Having thus stated my objection to the commonly accepted view of the 
infinite, I must abstain from any special criticism of Professor Keysets 
eloquent dissertation further than to remark that I have great difficulty in 
accepting the conclusion (p. 388) which (logically enough) he draws from 
modern non-Euclidean premises. This conclusion, which he himself rightly 
calls an " astounding revelation," is : that man, by the slow evolutionary 
development of his intellect, has now at last discovered that " he himself 
is infinite." I hope I have not here, by undue compression or otherwise, 
unintentionally misrepresented Professor Keysets meaning. My own 



918 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

view, founded in part on my definitions of the infinite and the infinitesimal, 
is that man is but a link in an infinite ascending and descending chain of 
psychic beings, culminating at last either in One Infinite Being, or else in 
more than one Equal Infinite Beings who always think and act so much 
in unison that they may be considered as virtually One. 

The preceding was written before I read Professor Keysets continua- 
tion of his argument in the April issue of the Hibbert Journal. A careful 
perusal of his second paper has in no way changed or modified my views 
on the true nature of mathematical infinity. I regard the so-called 
"paradoxy" of the modern non-Euclidean geometry or geometries as 
simply so many reductiones ad absurdum of the definitions and assumptions 
on which they are based. On all points but two I consider Euclid right 
and the modern non-Euclideans wrong ; and on those two points I agree 
with neither. Most non-Euclideans accept Euclid's definition of a mathe- 
matical line as " length without breadth,"" and his definition of a point as 
" that which has neither parts nor magnitude." Such lines and such points 
belong, in my opinion, to the class of entities which we commonly call un- 
realities. Every line has real breadth, though in mathematical investigations 
it is generally convenient to leave this breadth out of consideration ; while 
every real point is simply an infinitesimal distance when we are comparing 
distances, an infinitesimal area (generally square or circular) when we are 
comparing areas, and an infinitesimal volume (generally cubic or spherical) 
when we are comparing volumes. When I use the word infinite or infinitesi- 
mal, I mean, of course, infinite or infinitesimal (as already defined) in regard 
to our arbitrary unit of reference. Thus defined, different points may differ 
in lengths, areas, or volumes. The non-recognition of this fact vitiates 
(in my opinion) the whole foundation of Professor Keysets arguments on 
p. 381 of his first paper. In his second paper (p. 628) he speaks of the 
" totality " of even numbers and the " totality " of odd numbers. Now, it 
seems to me that these totalities are either arbitrary, in which case they 
may be finite or infinite as we choose to consider them ; or else, as totalities, 
they are pure unrealities. We may, for example, consider the first million 
even numbers 2, 4, 6, etc., and the first million odd numbers 1, 3, 5, etc. 
These are twojinite totalities. We may, on the other hand, consider the 
first Hj even numbers, and the first H odd numbers. These, by my 
definition here of the symbol H p are two infinite totalities, which may or 
may not be equal. An infinite totality in any other sense is, from my 
point of view, a self-contradiction. We cannot consistently speak of the 
whole or totality of anything that is absolutely boundless. Such totalities, 

1 2 
like the pseudo-infinities ^, ^, etc., are self-contradictory, and have only 

symbolic existence. 

HUGH MACCOLL. 
BOULOGNE-SUR-MER. 



REVIEWS 



The Development of Greek Philosophy. By Robert Adamson, sometime 
Professor of Logic and Rhetoric in the University of Glasgow. 
Edited by Professor W. R. Sorley and R. P. Hardie. Pp. x + 326. 
Edinburgh and London : Black wood & Sons, 1908. 

EMINENTLY characteristic of Professor Adamson's mode of teaching was 
the stress laid by him upon the importance of Greek Philosophy as the 
right means of approaching the problems of speculative thinking. To 
understand the significance of the ideas which reason brings to bear on 
experience, one must realise, he insisted, how the demands of reason 
gradually emerge, and how, in the endeavour to satisfy those demands, the 
generalities of rational thought take their rise. The early thinkers, he 
maintained, exhibit " philosophy in the making " ; and, distinguished by 
its "fearless straightforwardness," by what Hegel called Aufkldrung, 
Greek speculation afforded the natural mode of introduction to 
philosophical reflection. This volume, containing the substance of the 
lectures on Greek Philosophy delivered by Professor Adamson at Glasgow 
during the years immediately preceding his death, will supply a long-felt 
want. Singularly able, stimulating and suggestive throughout, the book 
ought to secure a wide circle of readers. In English there is certainly no 
other treatise on the subject of like compass at all comparable with it in 
point of lucidity, thoroughness, and sound scholarship. It forms, more- 
over, a valuable addition to the two volumes of Lectures published five 
years ago. The editors are to be congratulated on their very successful 
accomplishment of a task anything but easy. With no other material at 
their disposal than the notes of students, they have contrived to turn out 
a book which reads almost as though it had been written for the press, 
whilst the numerous references, supplied by them, to the original 
authorities, contribute considerably to the usefulness of the volume. 
Mention should also be made of the exceedingly helpful indexes, which 
have been compiled by the author's daughter, Mrs C. J. Hamilton, with a 
care and completeness worthy of her father's work. 

The book, which covers an extensive ground, is divided into four parts. 
The first part deals with the pre-Platonic systems, the second with 
Plato, the third with Aristotle, and the fourth with the Philosophy of the 
Stoics. By far the larger half of the volume is, however, devoted to a 
discussion of the Platonic theory of Ideas and of the Aristotelian 
philosophy. 

Of the chapters on the pre-Socratic systems, that on the Eleatics is 

919 



920 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

perhaps of special importance, in view of the author's interpretation of 
Platonism. Professor Adamson rejects the view of Zeller a view possess- 
ing, also, the weighty support of Professor Burnet that Parmenides con- 
ceived of Being as a motionless, corporeal, indivisible plenum. He maintains 
that the Eleatic doctrine is more correctly described as metaphysical in 
character, by which I understand him to mean that the essence of the 
Eleatic conception consisted in the denial to Being of any other nature than 
that of simple being. The arguments of Zeno seem, indeed, to lose their 
point, if we are to suppose that the One is endowed with the characteristics 
which we assign to extendedness or space. And Melissus very explicitly 
declares that Being is not corporeal Set avro (reluct w ex LV (Simpl. Phys. 
110. 1). "Parmenides, 11 writes Professor Burnet, "is not, as some have 
said, the ' father of idealism ' ; on the contrary, all materialism depends on 
his view of reality. 11 Parmenides, certainly, is no idealist in the sense of 
implying that the subjective process of thinking either is, or is creative of, 
Being, and so to interpret the well-known dictum, ravrov 6' etrrl voeiv re 
/ecu ovvcKev ea-Ti vor)/u.a 9 would be undoubtedly a woeful anachronism. 
What, however, these words do express is just the burden of the Eleatic 
philosophy namely, that the one content of thought is Being, and that 
all we can do with respect to the real world is to think of it as existing. 
The Eleatic doctrine has for us the permanent interest " that it marks one 
of the perplexities in which human reflection is always involved when it 
attempts to employ its own notions in working out a completely intelligible 
scheme 11 (p. 36). 

Daring scepticism had always, I think, a fascination for Professor 
Adamson he speaks, for example, of Carneades as "by far the acutest 
mind in antiquity 11 (p. 260) and it is not, perhaps, surprising that the obscure 
tenets of the Cynics possessed for him a peculiar attractiveness. " There is, 11 
he considers, " good reason for supposing that the opposition of principle 
between Antisthenes and Plato was much more detailed than is generally 
suspected ; that Antisthenes advocated a theory of knowledge in all respects 
opposed to the Platonic ; that they mutually criticised one another's views ; 
and that in the working out of his own theory of knowledge Plato has 
repeatedly the counter-doctrine of Antisthenes in view 11 (p. 79). The 
counter-doctrine is, in fact, examined in the Thecetetus (201 D. sqq.\ and 
appears to have been a nominalism of an extreme sort. Existence was 
made up of isolated individual elements, apprehended by correspondingly 
isolated acts of perception. Of each thing there could be predicated only 
the expression peculiar to itself (OIKCIOS Ao'yo?) ; ultimately, knowledge was 
confined to identical propositions (eV e<' ei/o'?). From another standpoint 
the Megarians also reached a similar position with reference to the nature 
of predication. Combining, so far as was possible, the Eleatic doctrine 
of Being with the Socratic doctrine of Notions, they drew, apparently, the 
conclusion that reality consists of a multiplicity of ideal, unchangeable 
forms, devoid of interconnection, and apprehensible by means of reason 
alone. And, after the manner of the Eleatics, they assigned no measure 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 921 

of existence to the particulars of sense perception. The author takes the 
eiSuiv $i\oi of the Sophist to be representatives of the Megarian school, 
and, indeed, thinks that not only in the Sophist but also in the Parmenides 
Plato is to be found struggling with the problem of the One and the Many 
as it took shape in the hands of the Megarian teachers. 

One is conscious that behind the masterly treatment of the Platonic 
theory of Ideas, in Part II., there lies the full force of Professor Adamson's 
immense erudition and keen critical faculty. The central problem of the 
Platonic philosophy was, he contends, to define in what consisted the 
shadowy, quasi-existential character of the phenomenal world. For, 
whilst the Eleatics and their successors of the Megarian school had cut 
the knot of the difficulty by simply denying to sense particulars any claim 
at all to the title of existence, Plato, who could not fail to have seen that 
both as a whole and individually the Ideas occupied very much the position 
of Being in the Eleatic system, never for a moment intended to relegate 
the things of perception to the indefinable region of Non-Being. 

From an early stage of his philosophising, Plato is evidently alive to 
the consideration that the very manner in which the notion of Ideas had 
been reached indicated a connection of some sort between them and the 
multiplicity of sense experience. In the earlier dialogues Phcedrus, 
Republic, Phcedo the Idea is always regarded as the permanent real 
essence corresponding to the result of generalisation a generalisation 
which starts from the particulars, and which therefore would have had no 
justification were the distinction between the two realms regarded as one of 
total exclusion. If, then, Plato at first attempts to explain the connection 
by calling to his aid such expressions as yue$e?, or Trapov&ia, or fi.lfjaj<rif 9 it 
can hardly be doubted that even to himself these expressions counted for 
little more than metaphors, and left the real difficulty unsolved. The ex- 
pedient to which he has recourse is of a more drastic kind. When reality, 
by abstracting thought, has been " cut in two with a hatchet," the severed 
halves can only be brought together again through the instrumentality 
of a tertium quid. Such a tertium quid Plato discovers in the peculiar 
function of what he calls the soul later, more especially, the world- 
soul. The soul stands, as it were, on the confines of the two worlds, uniting 
in itself characteristics of each. On the one hand, although not itself an 
Idea, it shares, as the principle of knowing, in the nature of the Ideas, for 
only as timelessly apprehensive of the Ideas does it exist at all. On the 
other hand, although not itself a sense particular, it shares to some extent, 
as the principle of self-originating movement or change, in the nature of 
the changeable. What, then, in speaking of the phenomenal, is meta- 
phorically described as /uLe6ets or irapovvia or /x/yui/crt?, rests, in the long 
run, upon the soul's vision of the Ideas, whilst the plurality, the mutability, 
the transitoriness of phenomena is traced, obscurely enough, to the soul's 
activity. 

No fundamental difference of principle, contends Professor Adamson, 
distinguishes the later form of the Ideal theory from this earlier form. 



922 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

The lines of development are mainly in three directions, (i.) Plato con- 
centrates more effort than he had done previously on the conception, 
already, in some measure, worked out in the Republic, of a gradation or 
scale of existence, extending from the highest or most perfect to that 
which is on the point of passing into the non-existent. In the Sophist, 
for example, the interconnections among the Ideas are no longer of the 
external kind supplied by the process of generalising. Through introduc- 
tion of the notions of sameness and otherness (ravrov KUI Oarepov) the way 
in which the Ideas stand to one another is made to follow in a certain 
sense from the intrinsic nature of the Ideas themselves. Each Idea, 
whilst remaining identical with itself, is different from every other, and 
such difference affords a ground for the predication of non-Being. 
" A way is thus prepared for excluding from the realm of real existence 
much that would have been included in it from the earlier point of 
view 11 (p. 110), and, at the same time, for modifying the first 
conception of the relation of the generated particulars to the Idea 
(p. 111). That trend of thought is pursued further in the Philebus, 
where the elements or kinds of existence are classified under the heads of 
the fourfold scheme aireipov, Trepas, /JLLKTOV, and atria. Neither the Tre'/oa?, 
as Brandis held, nor the fuicrov, as Professor Jackson holds, is, in our 
author's view, the realm of the Ideas. He is of opinion that the airia is the 
realm of the Ideas, whilst the /UUKTOV class is restricted solely to particulars. 
The interpretation adopted is not, it is true, free from difficulty, no 
interpretation of this passage is, but what it implies is this. The Ideal 
reality is the atria r*j$ gvpfiigew in the sense of being the informing 
principle through which quantitative definiteness is imposed on the Indeter- 
minate. Numerical ratios occupy, that is to say, a sort of middle region 
between Ideas on the one hand and sense particulars on the other, serving 
thus to bridge the chasm between the singleness of the Idea and the 
multiplicity of phenomena, (ii.) Plato comes to realise that in the world 
of generation there is a feature "just that which is dimly indicated by 
our term ' materiality ' " which, in his earlier writings, had not received 
the attention it called for. Accordingly, in the Timasus, besides Being and 
Becoming, there is included within the scheme of the universe a third factor, 
metaphorically described as " the receptacle (vTroSoxn)? an d, as it were, the 
nurse, of all becoming " a factor more specifically defined as space (x/oa), 
which Aristotle expressly tells us was identified by Plato with v\t) (Phys. 
iv. 2). Here, then, we have another attempt to offer some explanation of 
the obstinate, irreducible element pervading the realm of phenomena. 
Space, the mere form of externality, of mutual exclusiveness, is presented 
as the broad ground of demarcation between the purely intellectual 
connectedness of the Ideal world and the vague, fluctuating relations of 
sense particulars. Space, moreover, is conceived by Plato as the very type of 
Otherness or Difference (Odrepov} the Otherness necessarily involved, ap- 
parently, in the existence of the Ideal world itself, and rendering likewise the 
phenomenal world a necessary consequence of that existence. As reflected in, 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 923 

as projected into, space, the Ideas necessarily come to offer themselves as plural- 
ised into a multiplicity of relative and transitory shapes or images (curiovra 
KOI egiovra). Material bodies are "just determinations of space, according 
to a mathematical law" (p. 122). (iii.) Plato departs more and more from 
his earlier position that to every common name there corresponds an Idea, 
and is gradually led to see that the theory did not require the assumption 
of Ideas of artificial objects (ovcei/ao-ra), of relations, of qualities, or of 
things evil as such. Ultimately, in the Timcem, two types only of Ideas 
are recognised : (a) those of classes determined by nature, all informed in 
various measure by soul, classes, that is to say, of foJa, and (b) those of 
a more abstract character, tending to become hardly distinguishable from 
numerical ratios. Inorganic nature is conceived as built up of elements 
which are in truth mathematical in character, and the sense qualities which 
we ascribe to material things are regarded as largely, if not wholly, 
subjective. 

This account of Plato's development differs widely, it need scarcely be said, 
from that which we owe to Professor Jackson and Mr Archer-Hind. They 
contend that in the later Platonism the self-existence of the Ideas is entirely 
abandoned, that Plato attained finally to a conception of the universe as 
the self-evolution of absolute intelligence of which finite intelligences are 
differentiations, and that the system of Ideas then became for Plato a system 
of thoughts within the supreme mind, whilst sensible perceptions were the 
finite intellect's apprehension, under the conditions of space and time, of 
the Idea as existing in the intellect of God. For his part, whilst admitting 
the importance of the position assigned to soul in Plato's explanation of the 
world of generation, Professor Adam son insists, on the other hand, that 
Plato always distinguished Soul from the Ideas, and that he steadfastly 
maintained in respect to the Ideas (as, e.g., in Timceus, 52 A) a " transcen- 
dental " mode of existence. 

The chapters on Aristotle bring out in a striking, incisive manner both 
the strength and the weakness of a philosophy which, whilst a unique 
achievement of constructive genius, combines " quite incongruous and 
incoherent parts." Despite the most strenuous efforts, Aristotle never 
really succeeds in surmounting the Platonic dualism. At every one of the 
crucial points in his philosophy equally in his epistemology, in his 
psychology, in his ethics, in his metaphysic there confronts us a hiatus, 
a distinction of kind, creating difficulties precisely similar in character to 
those which he himself detects in Platonism. (i.) There runs through the 
theory of knowledge a "mysterious separation" between intuition (i/ov?), 
the faculty of immediately apprehending first principles (the TT/OWTQ KUI 
a/xeo-a), on the one hand, and the discursive operation of thought whereby 
conceptions are compared, contrasted, and rendered precise for the purposes 
of science on the other, and between both these again and those functions 
of mind based upon and proceeding from sense perception. Knowledge, 
Aristotle will have it understood, is in itself the union of the general and the 
particular, of the universal and the individual ; the individual, as it enters 



924 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

into knowledge, must have an aspect of universality. Yet, when he comes 
to work out this principle in detail, it is seen to hold a position of unstable 
equilibrium between two incompatible senses of the term "individual."" 
On the one hand, by " individual " is meant not the numerical unit, but 
that which is manifested in a plurality of separate units the natural kind or 
ultimate species (aro/xov elSbs). On the other hand, there is the contention 
that in the order of time our knowledge always starts with the particular 
(TO KaO' e/ca<rroi'), which is not originally apprehended as the manifestation 
or expression of the form or essence of a natural kind. Nowhere does 
Aristotle furnish a satisfactory account of the relation between these 
two senses of the term. Coinciding with the first is the view he through- 
out accepts, thereby retaining the characteristic tenet of Platonism, 
that nature is a system of fixed, permanent types of existence, of 
e?&;, which, save that each one is a specific, and not a generic, universal, are 
difficult to distinguish from the Platonic Ideas. He does not even remain 
true to the position that an individual specific form receives realisation 
only in the potentially manifold matter, and hence in numerical plurality ; 
for the Divine nature, in which there is no feature of numerical plurality, 
is yet conceived by him as possessing, in the highest degree, individuality, 
(ii.) A corresponding perplexity is apparent in the psychology. However 
anxious Aristotle may be to exhibit vov$ as working into a unity with the 
other functions of the soul, he debars himself from doing so by the very 
way in which he has formulated his problem. The truth of things consists 
in their eternal, permanent, intelligible essences (i/oi/ra), and these require 
for their apprehension an apprehending activity in nature cognate to 
themselves eternal and permanent as they are, free as they are from 
corporeal and temporal conditions. Since, then, the soul is obviously 
dependent on corporeal and temporal conditions, it follows that vov$ is in 
its own nature independent of ^vxn* it enters the latter OvpaOev, and 
whilst the soul perishes it endures. Just as little, however, can i/oO? be 
conceived as though it were an illumination of the finite soul by the 
infinite mind, for the latter is absolutely separate from the world of 
generation, (iii.) A similar unresolved opposition manifests itself in the 
Aristotelian ethics. The sharply contrasted ideals of 7rpdgi$ and Oewpta 
are so disjoined as to prevent any real union. Whilst, in accordance 
with the first, the practical life of temporal effort in the com- 
munity is viewed as a final end, in the attainment of which moral 
excellence is realised, in accordance with the second, the supreme 
welfare of man turns out ultimately to be in a sense at least individual 
in character a mode of life, at all events, in which the individual 
is conceived apart from all relations to the community. The Oecopwv, 
stationed on his solitary eminence, is pictured as a lonely little god. 
(vi.) Resolutely bent, as unquestionably Aristotle is, upon working out, in 
centra-distinction to the Platonic metaphysic, the thought of the e'lSrj as im- 
manent in things, as subsisting not Trapa ra TroXXa but /cara TroAXwi/, yet 
the elusiveness of that thought proves to be too great even for his skill. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 925 

Consistently with his conception of the universe as exhibiting a graduated 
scale of existence, the Divine Being should have been regarded as the 
actualisation of what the subordinate stages were potentially as the soul, 
so to speak, of the cosmos. But, on the lines of the Aristotelian meta- 
physic, this consummation the crowning consummation, doubtless, of any 
metaphysic was not to be secured. The Aristotelian deity is a self- 
contained essence, pure, unmixed, evepyeta, placed beyond all conceivable 
relation to the world of the concrete and changeable. With the unity and 
absoluteness of the Divine nature there is no means of connecting the 
multiplicity and relativeness of even the intelligible essences in the world 
of generation. " If," exclaims Aristotle, " the theory of Ideas provides us 
with no explanation of Change, it cuts us off from any philosophy of 
nature." Exactly ; yet the demand he makes upon Platonism is a demand 
which Aristotelianism is even less able to satisfy. The hint, indeed, is 
thrown out that, since everywhere the tendency towards an end is opera- 
tive, and perfect actuality is the highest end, movement in nature is 
ultimately due to a certain striving or desire, a certain unconscious yearning 
or impulse, of things towards the Divine. But, profound as in some ways 
the suggestion is, it avails not to bridge over the contradiction between 
the two Aristotelian doctrines the one, applied unhesitatingly 
to the entire sphere of change, that what moves things must itself 
be moved ; the other, restricted to God's unchangeable being, that 
the cause of movement remains unmoved. And when we scrutinise 
the term indicative of the lowest position on the scale of existence, 
another aspect of the same dilemma comes to the surface. Whilst, 
on the one hand, v\rj is described as altogether relative in character, 
as being almost synonymous with negation (erre/oijcnj), as in the last 
resort identical with form, yet, on the other hand, the assignment to 
v\rj of highly positive functions is no excrescence on the Aristotelian 
system, but an essential feature thereof. Matter is the unoriginated and 
indestructible basis of all Becoming : it resists form ; it is stubborn and 
unyielding ; it gives rise to deviations from natural law ; it is the cause of 
monstrosities (repara). In short, matter is at once necessary for the 
Aristotelian scheme of development and at the same time refuses to fit 
into that scheme. 

What is the cardinal lesson Professor Adamson would have us derive 
from such an examination as is here presented of the Platonic and 
Aristotelian philosophy ? It is not, I think, difficult to discern. The 
TrpMTov \!sevSo$ of Platonism and of Aristotelianism likewise is the 
confusion, underlying the whole system, between the notion of truth and 
the notion of real existence. Plato identifies unreservedly and simply 
reality and truth : universal validity and objective existence are for him 
one and the same. The timelessness attaching to truth is forthwith taken to 
be characteristic of reality ; the constituents of real existence are assumed 
to possess just that constancy, just that immutability, which belong to 
the notions and principles of intellectual apprehension. The identification 



926 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

is one to which human reflection is all too readily prone. Whenever, for 
example, we refer the apparent chaos of successive phenomena to the 
constancy of natural law, we tend to hypostatise the law, to regard it 
as a real entity, and to allow only a derivative, secondary kind of 
being to the phenomena the law is said to explain. If, now, it 
be further noted that Plato has usually no hesitation in supposing that a 
distinction in thought must always have corresponding to it an exact 
counterpart in real existence, the fundamental feature, characteristic of 
his whole procedure, comes into clear light. Existence of the more special 
concrete kind must be regarded as dependent upon, as deducible from, existence 
of the more general kind ; relative existence must be derived from, and ex- 
plained by, absolute, unconditioned existence. We get, then, inevitably the 
contrast between a world of full, complete existence and a world of frag- 
mentary, incomplete existence, of partial non-existence the antithesis 
between the supernatural and the natural, for that, in the end, is what it 
amounts to which is the note of Platonism as an influence in the history 
of human thinking. Platonism furnishes, in fact, the most convincing illus- 
tration we possess of the inherent difficulty attending any purely deductive 
construction of the universe of being. To deduce the relative from the 
Absolute cannot but evince itself as a futile undertaking, and that because, 
from the very nature of the initial position assumed, it must be impossible 
to extract from one of these factors, namely, the Absolute, that wherein, 
specifically, the other, the relative, differs from it. Something over and 
above what is contained in the universal must be possessed by the par- 
ticular ; and the residuum can never be accounted for by reference to the 
universal. The universal explains no more than that in the particular 
which does not differ from it. "It is with Plato as with Spinoza; and 
Plato's procedure in interposing intermediaries the Soul and Space 
between the eternal Idea and the variable particular is exactly parallel 
to Spinoza's interposition of the attributes and the infinite modes between 
the universal of Substance and the particular of the finite modes" (p. 131). 
The appearance of success in any attempt to find an explanation of the 
particular and the relative in some universal, absolute ground is invariably 
due to the circumstance that there is illegitimately read into the ultimate 
ground the additional features required in order to render that ultimate 
ground equal to the emergencies of the situation. Of this, the Aristotelian 
philosophy and Aristotle stands to Plato very much in the relation in 
which Hegel stands to Spinoza offers abundant confirmation. Of " that 
impatience with particular phenomena, and that desire at once to get away 
from them, which was," as Caird puts it, " the main weakness of Plato," 
there is in Aristotle no trace. Never weary of his polemic against the 
Platonic error of conferring substantive existence upon the generalities 
of thought, he insists with ever renewed emphasis that only the concrete 
is real. Excellent maxim ! " Video meliora proboque" we can almost imagine 
him declaiming, " deteriora sequor" The Ideas, for him, shall no longer 
be ^wpLcrrai. Nor, indeed, are they, if by that be meant existing 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 927 

apart in a celestial region. Interpreted in a new way as the essences 
of the natural kinds into which the world of generation is divided, 
they have their habitation here below. But transportation from 
heaven to earth works, in itself, no miracle ; mere proximity to, or 
remoteness from, a mundane environment is, after all, in respect to 
the vital issue, a circumstance of comparatively small moment ; the pro- 
blem of the One and the Many is not solved by the simple device of 
stationing the One in the Many. For although in the world, universals 
may still not be of the world ; and, conceived as both Aristotle and Hegel 
conceive them, they assuredly are not. " Individuals are born and perish," 
says Hegel, quite in Aristotelian strain, " the species abides and recurs in 
them all, and its existence is visible only to reflection." Concrete fact, 
however, is not a trvvOerov made up of fixed, eternal types or thoughts plus 
an indeterminate, formless element the two constituents being somehow 
welded together. Nature, so regarded, turns out to be a " bacchantic god," 
and amply avenges herself upon any attempt thus to represent what 
is most real in her as " enjoying a timeless mode of being, in contrast 
with which that which comes into being in time is relatively inferior." 
She punishes the thinker who hypostatises essences by forcing him to 
hypostatise also chance or contingency ; and she wrings from Hegel, as she 
had wrung from Aristotle, the confession that, besides the rational, " sport 
and external accident " have then a big share in her constitution. There is, 
perhaps, no term in the philosophical vocabulary that more often proves 
an obstacle to clear thinking than the term ' immanent,' and it is a 
delusion to suppose that in the notion of immanence is to be found a means 
of escaping the perplexities of Platonism. 

G. DAWES HICKS. 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. 



The Cults of the Greek States. By L. R. Farnell. In Five Volumes. Vols. 
III. and IV., with Illustrations. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1907. 

DR FARNELL'S great work advances slowly towards completion. The two 
volumes that form the present instalment show the same qualities as their 
predecessors laborious and careful collection of material, wide knowledge 
of literature and of kindred studies, sobriety of judgment, and clearness of 
exposition. The same method is followed as in the previous volumes, and 
although this method has met with some criticism at the hands of the 
newer school of mythologists, it is difficult to see how any other could be 
adopted in a systematic account of the established religion as it existed in 
the various states of Greece. Doubtless this established religion was com- 
pounded out of many incongruous elements belonging to various states of 
religious belief and possibly to various races. But an attempt to dis- 
entangle these, however fascinating as a study, could hardly, at least in the 



928 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

present state of our knowledge, be made a basis for classification. The 
greater part of the available material would be very difficult to fit into the 
scheme of such an investigation ; and, after all, an account of religious 
cults in Greece which ignored the Olympian system, or relegated it to a 
subordinate position, would be as inadequate and one-sided as an account 
of religion in modern Europe which ignored Christianity. 

The fourth volume has a more or less homogeneous character, being 
devoted mainly to the earth goddess and the deities identified or closely 
associated with her Demeter and Persephone, and the Mother of the 
Gods. A good example of Dr FarneLTs methods is to be seen in his 
criticism of the view that Demeter and Persephone were probably evolved 
from the primitive corn-fetishes of the field. He says "there is the 
shadowy personality of an earth-goddess in the background, of larger 
dimensions than a corn-sheaf, which lends magnitude and grandeur to the 
Demeter-religion " ; and most critics will agree that this judgment is just. 
Among the many matters treated of in this volume, none excite more 
general interest than the Eleusinian Mysteries, and about nothing have 
more divergent views been held, or is there need for more discrimination. 
Dr Farnell discusses various recent theories, such as M. Foucarfs revival 
of the theory of an Egyptian origin, or the view that there was an early 
nameless earth-goddess at Eleusis before the intrusion of Demeter, and 
shows good reasons for rejecting them both. As to the Mysteries them- 
selves, he discusses carefully Dr Jevons's suggestion that their most 
essential feature was a sacramental sacrifice, but points out the weakness 
of the evidence for it. The great and indisputable influence of the 
Mysteries may after all be explained in a simpler and more direct manner. 
The intense religious excitement, induced by certain sacred rites and 
performances, which followed days of fast and preparation, may well have 
been such as to produce a permanent effect on the character of the 
initiated. It is perhaps more difficult to explain why this effect should 
also be regarded as ensuring happiness in a future life ; but Dr FarnelPs 
suggestion that the various ceremonies could induce "the feeling of 
intimacy and friendship with the deities," so that " those who had won 
their friendship by initiation in this life would by the simple logic of faith 
regard themselves as certain to win blessing at their hands in the next," 
may be allowed as sufficient. It seems quite certain that no secret doctrine, 
however imparted, was the essential characteristic of the Eleusinian cult. 
Dr Farnell rightly refuses to see in the vase-paintings which have been 
brought into relation with the Mysteries anything more than a reference 
to some of the external surroundings and an ideal representation of some 
of the chief characters certainly they are not likely to be a divulgation 
of any secret rites. 

The fourth volume is devoted to Poseidon and to Apollo, of whom the 
latter naturally takes up by far the larger share. Indeed, the sections 
concerned with this god are the longest in the whole work, as was to be 
expected from the varied nature of his cult, the universality of his worship 



GREEK CULTS 929 

in Hellenic lands, and the ethical interest of his character ; " being the 
brightest creation of polytheism, he is also the most complex ; " he is also 
the most essentially Hellenic of the gods, because he stands clear, for the 
most part, of the philosophical or mystic or orgiastic features which have 
contaminated the worship of other Olympians. Even the 0a/>//a/co<, the 
human victims of the Attic Thargelia, are regarded by Dr Farnell as 
survivals from a pre-Apolline ritual, and not closely associated with the 
god ; but the victims thrown from the cliff at Leucas and at Curium in 
Cyprus were so treated in Apollo's service ; and though there is no 
evidence in these cases of identification with the god, it seems that here at 
least Apollo has inherited a darker and more primitive ritual. In the 
Hyacinthia also there was the mourning for Hyacinthus, such as fits a god 
of vegetation ; and the connection with Apollo seems more than accidental. 
It would, after all, be surprising if a god of such wide functions as Apollo 
did not absorb into his worship some of these less cheerful rites. Even 
the most ethical of his purely Hellenic conceptions, that of the Purifier 
from blood and from all other pollution or guilt, is not difficult to bring 
into relation with the more primitive notions of exorcism. As to the origin 
of the god, Dr Farnell accepts Ahrens" derivation of the tale of the Hyper- 
boreans from a misinterpretation of the old N. Greek 'Yirep$opoi = 
"Y7rep<j>opoi (transmitters of the sacred first-fruits), which he calls " by far 
the most interesting contribution made by philology to the solution of a 
problem in Greek religion." The route, then, of the sacred procession of 
the Daphnephoria from Tempe to Delphi " may have corresponded more 
or less with the line of the earliest southward migration of the worshippers 
of Apollo." 

But the discussion of Apolline ritual is endless. Another problem 
successfully dealt with in this volume is the early relation of Poseidon and 
Athena in Athens. Dr Farnell denies a primitive worship of Poseidon, 
and regards him as the intrusive god of Ionian or Minyan immigrants. 
Erechtheus, with whom he was identified in the later Athenian official cult, 
was an old agricultural hero under the protection of Athena. It must be 
admitted that this view fits the facts far better than that of a primitive 
god degraded to a hero by his more successful rival Athena. These few 
examples suffice to show that the book contains many interesting and 
even illuminating theories, in addition to being a storehouse of well- 
ordered facts. Dr FarnelPs treatment of Dionysus, of which he gave a 
specimen to the Hellenic Society the other day, will be eagerly awaited, 
Mythologists and students of religion, whether they accept Dr FarnelPs 
theories or not, will agree that they owe him gratitude for a collection of 
data which is far more complete, systematic, and judicious than any that 
was before available, and which goes far to confirm the leading position 
taken by English scholars in this branch of study. 

E. A. GAKDNER. 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. 

VOL. VII. No. 4. 59 



930 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

An Introduction to Social Psychology. By William M'Dougall. 
London : Methuen & Co. Pp. xv + 355. 

Hitman Nature in Politics. By Graham Wallas. London : Archibald 
Constable & Co. Pp. xvi + 302. 

THAT these books should be published at the same time is in itself note- 
worthy. A progressive psychologist making a path toward an interpreta- 
tion of group life meets half-way an enlightened politician who is seeking 
a psychological basis for his empirical knowledge of social activities. Mr 
M'Dougall, described by Mr Wallas as " keeping alive the study of 
psychology at Oxford " (p. vi), offers his book as a preparation for the 
study of collective or group psychology which he proposes to treat in 
another volume. In the terminology of Continental and American 
sociologists the present book is not social psychology at all, but deals 
rather with the social implications of psychology. However, discussion of 
terminology is a barren pursuit. 

In the preface the author frankly summarises what he regards as his 
own contributions to the subject, namely an elaboration of the idea of 
instinct, the assertion that all emotion is the affective aspect of the 
instinctive process, denial of an imitative instinct and insistence on the 
sympathetic induction of emotion, a modification of Groos's theory of play, 
a physiological and novel amplification of Shand's doctrine of the sentiments, 
and as the principal originality, " what may, perhaps, without abuse of the 
phrase, be called a theory of volition " (p. 10). 

Mr M'Dougall has made good his claims to a fresh and original treat- 
ment of his subject. Whether he is presenting new material or elaborating 
familiar themes, his grasp is sure and his exposition lucid. After insisting 
that the social sciences are sadly in need of a firm psychological basis, Mr 
M'Dougall addresses himself to the study of instinct, a word which, as he 
shows by many quotations, is used in a loose, vague way. An instinct is 
defined as "an inherited or innate psycho-physical disposition which 
determines its possessor to perceive, and to pay attention to, objects of a 
certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular 
quality upon perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in a 
particular manner, or at least to experience an impulse to such action " 
(p. 29). The temptation to posit an instinct whenever an explanation of 
conduct is required is notoriously seductive. On the principle of 
parsimony of hypotheses, it is important to reduce the number of primary 
instincts to a minimum. Of specific instincts Mr M'Dougall discovers the 
following, each accompanied by its appropriate emotion : flight and fear, 
repulsion and disgust, curiosity and wonder, pugnacity and anger, self- 
abasement and negative self- feeling, self-assertion and positive self-feeling, 
and the parental instinct and the tender emotion. To these are added certain 
instincts of which the emotional aspects are less well defined : the instinct 
of reproduction, the gregarious instinct, the instinct of acquisition, and 



SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 981 

the instinct of construction. Besides these specific instincts are certain 
general innate tendencies : sympathy, suggestion and suggestibility, 
imitation, play, and the rather elusive concept, temperament. Such are 
the raw materials of human character. In a way which holds the reader 
fascinated, if sometimes sceptical, Mr M'Dougall combines these primary 
instincts into sentiments, as a painter blends shades from the colours of his 
palette. Fear and curiosity fuse into awe. Add a touch of " tender 
emotion. " Behold reverence as the product. Negative and positive 
self-feeling neutralise each other and result in shyness: envy is a com- 
bination of negative self- feeling and of anger : anger and disgust produce 
scorn : reproach seems to be a fusion of anger and of tender emotion. 
Although this general theory of the sentiments is credited to Shand, Mr 
M'Dougall deserves gratitude "a binary compound of tender emotion 
and negative self-feeling" (p. 132) for the clear, persuasive, and yet 
cautious way in which he presents ideas which he has made thoroughly 
his own. 

The tracing of the process by which conscious, rational, and moral con- 
trol is slowly developed out of these instincts and sentiments is another 
admirable feature of this book. The stages are declared to be : a selec- 
tive process through pleasure and pain, next punishment and reward, then 
social approval and disapproval, finally control through loyalty to abstract 
ideals. The social influence from the very outset is rightly emphasised. 
It is a question whether the last stage is not too abstract and individual- 
istic. Even there the sanction for conduct is social, either in the sense 
that the ideals of justice, right, etc., are social or group standards, or 
inasmuch as the apparently isolated individual, even when he opposes his 
fellows and ignores their morality, is often supported by the vivid sense of 
an idealised society, " a heavenly host " who praise and sustain him. 

After a brilliant statement of the dilemmas and pitfalls of the vener- 
able determinist-libertarian controversy, Mr M'Dougall attempts to 
explain what James frankly calls a mystery, namely, how the weaker ideals 
and sentiments can prevail over the stronger and more primitive desires. 
The author accepts the view of James that " effort of attention is the 
essential form of all volition " (p. 242), but insists that the theory that a 
weaker sentiment gets itself expressed because conflicting desires are 
inhibited is " a false scent " (p. 244). In Mr M'DougalPs opinion the 
weaker, more idealistic, sentiment gains dominant power from receiving the 
support of the emotion of positive self-feeling. Thus volition becomes 
" the supporting or re-enforcing of a desire or conation by the co-operation 
of an impulse excited within the system of the self-regarding sentiment " 
(p. 249). This is so illuminating a point of view that it seems almost 
churlish to inquire from what source came the multiplicity of minute 
efforts by which this " sentiment for self-control " (p. 253) was built up, or 
just how the impulse gets itself excited at the right time to co-operate 
with the weak desire. In the presence of so cleverly constructed a house 
of cards, one holds his breath for fear the precarious structure may come 



932 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

to grief. However, it must be owned that Mr M'Dougall has pushed the 
mystery back another step, which in itself is a contribution. 

The second section ninety out of three hundred and fifty-five pages 
applies in a brief way the doctrine of instincts and sentiments to the 
family, war, urban crowding, religion, economic phenomena, tradition, 
custom, etc. The author apparently had little idea of making this part 
of the volume thorough or systematic. It is distinctly disappointing to 
any reader who is especially attracted by the word " social " in the title 
of the book. In his next volume on Collective or Group Psychology it is 
to be hoped that Mr M'Dougall will apply to social phenomena the 
original methods of analysis and exposition which make the first part of 
his Social Psychology noteworthy and permanently valuable. 

Human Nature in Politics represents the effort of a perplexed politician 
to find a new basis for faith in representative government. Mr Graham 
Wallas has been forced by his first-hand experiences in practical politics 
to choose between cynicism and psychologising. In accepting the latter 
alternative the expert in County Councils and School Boards rushes in 
where the Oxford psychologist treads cautiously. Mr Wallas has evidently 
been impressed with the need of another theory as to voters who prefer 
feeling to reflection and steadily refuse to intellectualise the means and 
ends of a nicely calculated and enlightened self-interest. In short, the old 
individualism with its simple principles is ridiculously futile as an explana- 
tion of a clamorous, unstable, at times even hysterical modern constituency. 
Therefore Mr Wallas eagerly seizes upon Darwinism, instincts and impulses 
as a basis for human nature as it manifests itself in politics. Mr M'Dougall 
would probably have his doubts about " a specific instinct of hatred for 
human beings of a different racial type from ourselves " (p. x), but would 
be in full accord with the general position. Too much of technical 
psychology must not be expected of a publicist. It is in the further 
development of the subject that Mr Wallas\s keen insight, enlightened 
philosophy, and charming humour show to greatest advantage. His treat- 
ment of symbols, emblems, party names, and epithets as " political 
entitities " which arouse loyalty and rule by suggestion, his analysis of 
" non-rational inference " in politics, his warning against undue simplifica- 
tion of political phenomena for purposes of reasoning, and his insistence 
on quantitative rather than merely qualitative estimates of social forces are 
particularly illuminating and sagacious. 

Part II. deals with the problem of political morality, an idealism 
developing out of the gradual individual and collective control of instinct 
by reason ; with representative government, which is being conceived in a 
new way so that an election is looked upon rather as a process by which 
right decisions are reached under right conditions than as a mechanical 
expedient by which decisions already formed are ascertained ; with the 
problem how to keep a civil service independent of partisan politics and at 
the same time in intelligent sympathy with the common national life ; and 
finally expresses a wistful hope rather than a dogmatic faith that national 



SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 933 

rivalries will ultimately yield to " the consciousness of a common purpose " 
which, even acknowledged as possible, " would alter the face of world 
politics at once " (p. 294). 

The weakness in Mr Wallas's treatment of " human nature " lies in his 
failure to appreciate the part which custom and sentiment play in preserv- 
ing the stability of a society. Instinct and impulse are constantly being 
organised into a social control which is based on habit and sentiment. 
The devices of society for producing and maintaining like-mindedness are 
too much neglected by Mr Wallas. Beneath the suggestible surface of a 
public lie deep strata of fixed convictions embedded in sentiment. The 
strength of a representative government consists, not in the rational assent 
or decisions of the many, but in this great fund of feeling which carries on 
generation after generation those traditions and customs which are summed 
up in the term " national character,"" and are ultimately traceable to the 
initiative of the few. Mr M'DougalPs treatment of the sentiments and 
Professor Sumner's Folkways l would give Mr Wallas the ideas which he 
needs to make his psychology more satisfying. But for all that, Human 
Nature in Politics marks a new stage in political philosophising. 

GEORGE E. VINCENT. 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 



The Moral Ideal: A Historic Study. By Julia Wedgwood. New and 
Revised Edition. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 
Ltd., 1907. 

" THE present edition of this book is an enlarged form of that published 
twenty years ago, with the addition of a chapter on Egypt, and much 
increase to almost all the rest. No view of mine is changed since I wrote 
first, but a good deal of what was unhelpful to the meaning is left out ; 
while any fresh material known to me has been carefully considered and 
mostly embodied, so that the result is practically a new book."" Such is the 
author's own account of the relation of the present edition to its prede- 
cessor. I shall probably best meet her wishes if I do not attempt any 
further distinction between what is old in the book and what is new, 
and treat it simply as a new book appearing for the first time. 

The Moral Ideal is a difficult book to characterise. It is a series of 
essays on the various phases of ethical thought and feeling which have 
succeeded one another since the first dawn of civilisation (we are glad to 
be spared the preliminary excursion into anthropology and primitive 
religion now usual in such works), beginning with Egypt and ending with 
the Reformation. It contains much history and much criticism, both of 
them based on wide and adequate learning ; but the element of the author's 
own reflection is so large that it might be described as almost more a book 
1 Folkways, by William G. Sumner (Boston : Gunn & Co., 1907). 



934 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

of penstes than either of culture-history or of criticism. " A History of 
Human Aspiration " is the description which Miss Wedgwood suggests for 
her work, with due apologies for applying such a title to " any volume of 
its size and informal character." More concretely one might perhaps say 
that its object is to compare Christian ethics with the mode of ethical and 
religious thought which might most obviously be thought of as entering 
into competition with Christianity, and to estimate the amount of their 
correspondence with it, and of their divergence from it. Though the 
authors own views are nowhere systematically developed, she combines an 
ardent sympathy with the Christian ideal with a full and frank recognition of 
the fact that other religions and other ethical systems contain much and 
important ethical truth much that may be regarded (though I don't 
know that she uses the phrase) as true and genuine revelation of God. 
And on the whole the attempt has been very successful. Few writers 
have succeeded so well in being just to Paganism and ancient philosophic 
ethics on the one hand, and to Christianity on the other. The book 
would be equally valuable and instructive to a narrow-minded Christian 
disposed to a contemptuous estimate of non-Christian ethics, and to 
the crude young man who is disposed to adopt the fashionable attitude 
of posing as " a sort of honorary member of all religions except his 
own."" The book is concerned with ethics rather than with religion or 
theology; and yet it is one of its strongest points that the author 
appreciates fully how artificial and unsatisfying is the attempt to deal 
with ethical questions apart from the systems of the universe (religious 
and philosophical) with which in real life ethical beliefs are always closely 
connected. 

In so vast a field there will obviously be room for differences of 
opinion, and the author's fondness for broad generalisation and contrast 
sometimes involves the ignoring of distinctions between periods and stages 
of development. The new chapter on Egypt " the single ancient 
nation " (as she strikingly calls it) and the Egyptian Religion is a par- 
ticularly interesting one, but I should be surprised if a competent critic 
would not feel the absence of that distinction between the different stages 
in the development of the religion which has been pointed out by such 
writers as Mr Flinders Petrie. " Its moral standard (we have surely 
established) comes nearer to the ideal of modern Christianity than that 
of any other people whose life we must cross the chasm of millenniums 
to appreciate " (p. 38). Surely such a verdict could only apply to a very 
late stage in the development of the religion. So again in the succeeding 
chapter on " India and the Primal Unity," though distinctions are drawn 
between Brahminism and Buddhism, Miss Wedgwood is perhaps a little 
over-eager to identify the modes of thought which they represent. The 
comparison of Buddhism with Christianity might have gained if it had 
been examined in less intimate connection with the far lower religion out of 
which it grew. To Greek and Roman ideals she is generally just, but 
occasionally we feel that there is a little exaggeration, if it is only the kind 



THE MORAL IDEAL 935 

of exaggeration which is almost inevitable if contrasts are to be pointed 
out in a striking and epigrammatic manner. To identify Aristotle's theory 
of virtue as the mean (as Miss Wedgwood practically does) with the 
ideal of " mediocrity " seems to me misleading. That Aristotle's con- 
ception of temperance falls short of what is demanded by Christianity is 
true enough, but that the doctrine of the mean does not necessarily 
involve a low standard of self-control is sufficiently indicated by the fact 
that it receives Christian baptism in the pages of St Thomas. The 
Christian schoolman was surely not wrong in seeing in it merely an 
assertion of the truth that the true moral ideal is the regulation of desire 
by reason rather than its suppression ; the kind and degree of regulation 
makes no difference to the doctrine. She seems to me to give too much 
countenance (p. 186) to the traditional dictum that there is no " ought " 
in Greek morality ; and even in the assertion that " the very idea that 
lies at the root of goodness for a Christian, or for many who have rejected 
Christianity the idea of self-sacrifice was, except with reference to the 
larger self found in the State, foreign to the Greek ideal" (p. 161), 
one might have liked a word of qualification, e.g. a reference to the 
doctrine of the friend as the alter ego, though, it is true, this self-sacrifice 
is after all explained as pursuit of a higher good for oneself. And so 
again, when it is said that " selfishness proper is a defect unrecognised by 
Greek moral thought " (p. 346), we naturally think of Aristotle's admission 
that even in his day men did " blame those who love themselves most of 
all, and call them selfish, as though there were something disgraceful in it " 
(o>9 ev ala^jpu) <pi\avTOv$ aTTOKoXovari), though he goes on to vindicate a higher 
kind of self-love. But doubtless to insist at every turn upon qualifications 
and hesitations would make all generalisation impossible, and such general- 
isation is of the very essence of such books as the author aims at writing. 
In the main Miss Wedgwood's contrast is doubtless well founded, but I 
should have liked a little more recognition of the important principle 
that in almost every higher religious or ethical system we discern occasional 
recognition of the truths rightly supposed to be most characteristic of 
Christianity. The moral rank of the system is determined largely by the 
presence or absence of elements inconsistent with such occasional recog- 
nition. To ignore this aspect of the question is only to play into the hands 
of those crude people who think they can explain away the moral supremacy 
of Christianity by quoting isolated sayings from a Jewish rabbi or 
a Roman Stoic which are almost verbally identical with some of the most 
characteristic sayings of Christ. 

Still more often, when we come to matters of opinion rather than of 
mere historic fact, we meet with epigrammatic sayings which set one 
wondering whether they do not involve more exaggeration than epigram 
necessarily demands. Here are a few of them : " When patriotism withered, 
a blight came over the whole moral ideal of that age." (In one direction 
there was doubtless a " blight," but was not Stoicism on the whole an 
advance, both in ideal and in practice ?) " Cicero is hardly a Roman, 



936 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

and among Romans he stands alone. He is a Londoner or Parisian 
born too soon ; he is an Athenian born too late ; he is a Roman as an 
English Liberal may be a Roman Catholic " (pp. 235-6). " A group of 
many cities could hardly accept with a whole heart and conscience the 
master-and-slave view of humanity as an ideal. The world of one city 
accepted it consistently and logically. . . . Rome is to rule the world, 
and Romans alone are free " (pp. 239-40). But yet does not Roman law 
exhibit a growing consciousness of individual rights, and did not even 
pagan emperors restrict slavery more than it had been restricted in 
Greece ? " Human nature is no worse at one time than at another " 
(p. 423). Without a good deal of interpretative qualification, does not 
the acceptance of such a doctrine stultify all human effort and aspiration ? 
Miss Wedgwood's book would be less interesting and suggestive than it is 
if it did not, side by side with scores of pointed sayings whose truth and 
insight will appeal to every reader, contain a few which suggest doubts 
such as these. 

Miss Wedgwood^s predominant sympathies are, I have suggested, with 
the Christian ideal, but this ideal is for her, it is evident, an ideal which 
is only in course of development. She is quite alive to the deficiencies of 
Christian morality in its actual historical manifestations. In one of the 
most valuable chapters of the book, entitled " The Fall of Man,"" she has 
had the courage to speak the truth about St Augustine. To shower 
indiscriminating praise upon St Augustine to treat him as the typical 
representative of the " religious " or " spiritual " nature has long been a 
fashion even with writers who can hardly be said to share a single 
article of his creed. Miss Wedgwood is bold enough to doubt whether 
what St Augustine calls his conversion was really that "passage from 
darkness to light " which he himself supposed. She throws some doubt 
upon the depth of the early depravity of which St Augustine accuses 
himself, and she points out in plain language the defects the unchristian 
defects, as an ordinary modern Protestant will be inclined to call them 
of the creed and the character which resulted from that change. 
" Augustine had recently repudiated one who in all but name had been a 
faithful wife to him for half a generation, and was the mother of his only 
son ; her recall and acknowledgment would surely have been recognised by 
an awakened conscience as the first step in the path of duty. Yet not 
only did this step never occur to him, but it is plain from all he says that 
had the advice been given he would have rejected it as a temptation of the 
Evil One. Such conduct in the fifth century must, of course, not be taken as 
a proof of the heartless cruelty which it would demonstrate in the twentieth, 
but is it compatible with a spiritual crisis that turns the soul to God ? " 
(p. 417). She goes on to point out the real meaning of that doctrine of 
original sin so often professed by those whose creed retains hardly a trace 
of its original significance, and to illustrate the evil effects in practice of a 
creed which makes sexual desire the source of all moral evil, and regards 
its suppression as incomparably more important than the demands of 



THE MORAL IDEAL 937 

ordinary honesty and good citizenship or kindly consideration for others. 
The letter of St Augustine to Boniface, Count of Africa, the traitor who in 
pursuance of a personal quarrel invited the Vandals into Africa, supplies 
her with a telling illustration of " the deadening influence on manhood of 
a morbid worship of purity." The treachery is treated as a venial trifle 
compared with the enormity of the Count's second marriage after a vow of 
continence. 

Miss Wedgwood's book is mainly, as the title-page suggests, " a historic 
study." In the last chapter she gives some slight indication of the moral 
that it is to teach. One point about the ideal of the future, she suggests, 
is determined : all ancient ideals including even those of the Church 
were "exclusive." The ideal of the present and the future is to be 
"inclusive." "The nation can never, with a whole heart, set up any 
permanent distinction between her children and her mere subjects. . . . 
The true nation is an expansive unity. Even more is the true Church. 
That conception of a final separation between the lost and the saved, which 
was for so long woven in with the teaching of Christianity, is in our time 
discarded for ever. In the future, whatever is a hope for any division of 
mankind must become a hope for all " (pp. 457-8). Miss Wedgwood goes on 
to point out how many ideals of life are still compatible with the admission 
that true good must be promoted for all. There remains the problem, 
" What is this good ? What is this good life that we must promote for 
all?" But here Miss Wedgwood is content rather to state a problem 
than to offer a solution any solution beyond the suggestion that the true 
human ideal must include all that is best in the various ideals which 
have been surveyed in the course of her work. 

The book concludes with an attempt to mark out the respective spheres 
of faith and of science, and to claim for the former the whole determination 
of that content for the idea of " good " of which we are in quest. The 
spirit of this distinction is very much that of the Kantian philosophy, 
except that Miss Wedgwood makes Kant's distinction between moral and 
scientific truth correspond with the distinction between " communicable and 
incommunicable truth " (which is hardly a Kantian idea) ; while it seems to 
be suggested that religious belief as well as ethical is to be determined 
by the same kind of immediate and incommunicable judgments with 
which we are presented in our moral judgments, instead of being, with 
Kant, arrived at merely as the necessary postulate of our purely ethical 
judgments. To many readers the sharpness of this dualism will seem to 
require qualification. In a rough way, of course, philosophers of all schools 
will admit the principle, but further distinction seems to be required. 
Our author treats historical fact as belonging to the region of demonstrable 
science ; but can we " demonstrate " the guilt or the innocence of Mary, 
Queen of Scots? And in the probabilities which alone are possible in 
such matters is there not a large subjective or " incommunicable " element, 
i.e. do not they ultimately repose upon judgments about human 
character which cannot always be "communicated" from one person to 



938 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

another person of different experience, temperament, or character ? And, 
on the other side, not all of us will be prepared to hand over to mere 
" faith " the determination of those questions about the ultimate nature of 
things which certainly lie beyond the sphere of " demonstrable " scientific 
fact. In this partition of human thought between " science " and " faith " 
philosophy seems to be left out. 

Further discussion of the problem thus raised would, of course, be out 
of place. I will only remark that this passage alluded to is the only 
one in the book which suggests a mode of thinking (though, of course, 
representatives of it could still be found among philosophers of the highest 
competence) which was commoner a generation ago than at the present time. 
To name only one of the causes of this change of attitude, modern thinkers 
are apt to be more alive than was once the case to the limitations of 
scientific thought even in its own sphere. " Science cannot enter the realm 
of ends," says Miss Wedgwood (p. 472). Not all modern biologists and few 
modern philosophers would be prepared to say that even botany can get 
on without the conception of an end, though, of course, it remains true 
that botany can tell us nothing of ends that ought to be pursued. If 
science has become less confident in its profession of " explaining " even the 
world of "phenomena," if the sphere of science is no longer treated as 
identical with the sphere of mechanics, philosophy has become more 
hopeful of treating "scientifically" questions which undoubtedly do not 
admit of the same degree of certainty, definiteness, and " communicability " 
that is possible within the sphere of mathematical physics. A closer 
investigation might show that the sharp contrast which Miss Wedgwood 
draws between the sphere of "science" and that of "faith" must be 
resolved into one of degree. There are minds incapable of apprehending 
even the self-evident axioms of mathematics or of logic, and no instruction 
can " communicate " such axioms to them : the categorical imperatives of 
one man's moral consciousness do not indeed command universal assent, but 
they may represent something more than a sort of wilful, non-rational 
vpse dixit. The moral consciousness claims the same objective validity 
for its judgments of value that science claims for its laws. It is 
possible, no doubt, to speak of " verification " in science in a way which 
is not possible in ethics; but all "verification" implies axioms or 
postulates which cannot themselves be verified. Still less will modern 
thinkers be generally disposed to admit that theories of the universe are 
merely creations of individual choice or individual intuition : those 
who approach nearest to such a position will not share Miss Wedg- 
wood's confidence in the absolute certainty and truth, within its own 
sphere, of positive science. 

I feel I have been much too critical and controversial in dealing with 
a book with whose general tone I am in hearty sympathy, and for the 
merits of which I feel a hearty and respectful admiration. But it is a 
book whose merits could hardly be exhibited by extract or recapitulation : 
an attempt to epitomise the contents of a book which consists itself in 



THE MORAL IDEAL 939 

very closely packed survey of wide fields of thought could only end in 
dullness. The book is full of interesting information, of thoughtful 
criticism and appreciation, of incisive and even brilliant suggestion. It 
may be cordially recommended to those who do not know it ; while many 
of those who read it in its earlier form will be glad to renew their acquaint- 
ance with what has become " practically a new book." It contains no cut- 
and-dried " system of ethical thought," but it will be eminently helpful 
and delightful to those who are engaged in the search for one, and it will be 
read with delight by that larger number of readers who care less for systems 
than for a working ideal of life. 

H. RASHDALL. 
NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD. 



Myth, Magic, and Morals : A Study of Christian Origins. By F. C. 
Conybeare. Pp. xviii + 376. London : Watts & Co., 1909. 

THE sub-title of this book does not appear on its cover nor even on its 
first page. For this reason, perhaps, it has found its way into the hands 
of the present reviewer, a mere student of the lower culture, whose feet 
have never ventured on the high-soaring but treacherous path of 
Biblical criticism. Thus he is incompetent to do more than attempt to 
estimate the general tone and trend of Mr Conybeare^s work. Yet after 
all he may serve in a humble sort of way as a touchstone of its worth, 
since it is clearly designed for popular consumption. To the specialist 
the fact that the chapters are for the most part ill-provided with 
references, and have doubtless been written where books were hard to 
obtain, may prove at first disturbing. Everyone knows, however, that 
Mr Conybeare has a quarter of a century of wide and critical research at 
his back. Hence to challenge his accuracy is only likely to result in 
catching a Tartar. For the rest, it is always easier and pleasanter to 
listen to the man who, after elaborate preparation, has the courage to put 
his notes in his pocket and let himself go. Indeed, the high literary 
quality of the book consists just in this, its perfect freedom and flow ; 
whilst to the same cause may be assigned its defects, such as they are, 
namely, a slight tendency to go off on a side-track, and a certain violence 
of manner that one is wont to associate, say, with the ardent parliamen- 
tarian rather than with the philosopher who weighs his words. 

The problem that Mr Conybeare puts to himself is broadly this : If 
we subtract the myth and the magic from early Christianity, is there 
anything left but the morals ? He would seem to conclude that there is 
nothing. Meanwhile he appears to be decidedly more interested in 
abetting the work of subtraction than in helping towards an appreciation 
of the residue. His treatment of Christian morals is, to use a favourite 
academic phrase, perfunctory. In fact, he might almost as well have left 



940 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

the word out of his title. A bare dozen of pages is devoted to the mora 
teaching of Jesus, and that mainly with the object of showing that its 
universality is not so real as it seems. Yet he allows it to have value for 
the present age in a conclusion that is at the same time highly character- 
istic of his own attitude towards the official representatives of Christianity : 

" A sublime intransigence breathes through these parables and pre- 
cepts : a fierce scorn for the rich and selfish, a tender love for the poor and 
suffering, a contempt for shams and empty conventions, an uncompromising 
devotion to truth, a true humility. There is about them a ring of real 
manliness ; and that is why the document that records them has proved 
itself, in every age, a text-book of martyrdom, extorting for itself the 
homage, however hypocritical, even of clerics and oppressors." 

By myth Mr Conybeare means what ethnologists, such, for instance, as 
M. Hubert, prefer to distinguish as " legend.*" Everyone is agreed that 
in later times there was a luxuriant growth of Christian legend ; and by 
the use of scientific method we are coming to understand the conditions, 
psychological and sociological, under which such a process was fostered or 
retarded. Mr Conybeare refers the student to a chapter in the scholarly 
work of Father Hippolyte Delehaye, S.J., Les Legendes Hagiographiques 
(Brussels, 1905), where the gradual accretion of legend round the life of 
the martyr Procopius is admirably illustrated. The question then arises 
whether the same falsifying influences have not to a greater or less extent 
contaminated the very sources of historical Christianity. The decision 
must be left to the experts, of whom Mr Conybeare is one. The mere 
anthropologist can but profess allegiance to the methodological postulate 
that the mythopceic tendencies of the human mind are subject to the same 
laws all the world over. 

Magic is a term that still cries aloud for adequate definition. Mr 
Conybeare faces this task resolutely. " Magic," he says, " may for our 
purpose be defined as any rite or religious operation which, in ignorance of 
true causes, seeks to realise ends, necessary or unnecessary to the well- 
being of society, by an appeal to occult or supernatural forces, no matter 
whether the latter be regarded as personal or not." This notion of magic 
openly conflicts with various conceptions of it that in the anthropological 
field are at this moment engaged in an internecine struggle for existence. 
The distinction between the control of impersonal forces and the concilia- 
tion of personal beings, with which Dr Frazer virtually correlates the 
antithesis between magic and religion, is brushed aside. So is the 
distinction between the anti-social and social types of supernaturalism, 
whereon MM. Hubert and Mauss would build. Yet Mr Conybeare does 
not go quite so far as M. Van Gennep, who has recently identified religion 
with the whole theory, and magic with the whole practice or technique, of 
sacred cult in all its kinds. Mr Conybeare doubtless perceives that the 
word magical is bound to retain a dyslogistic flavour. You could never 
expect to remain on good terms with a bishop if you called him a 
magician to his face. However, he is evidently prepared to employ the 



MYTH, MAGIC, AND MORALS 941 

language of disparagement about all rites usually regarded as religious, if 
they fail to make appeal to the true causes of things. What are the true 
causes of things ? Mr Conybeare apparently knows. His denunciation of 
the "charlatanry" of Brigham Young, Mrs Eddy, Eusapia Palladino, 
Home, Madame Blavatsky, and so on, may perhaps pass muster ; though 
even in connection with some of these cases he might find that men of 
science were not prepared to endorse his opinion that " the entire vulgar 
mechanism of trickery " lay exposed to view. But when he condemns tin- 
Eucharist, and incidentally humanity's immemorial attempt to effect com- 
munion with the divine, as a failure to apprehend the laws of cause and 
effect, he either is guilty of a most unscientific dogmatism or is drawing on 
sources of information denied to the rest of the race. 

Now there is something to be said for dogmatism on the score of its 
ad hominem pertinency so long as it is used to overthrow a dogmatism that 
is equally haughty and uncompromising. If, for instance, some Christian 
theologian, casting his eye contemptuously over the earlier history of 
religion, were to declare that he can see nothing here but superstition 
crass and blind, then it is good for him, if not good absolutely, that an 
adversary should retort : " Why, in that case your own beliefs are riddled 
through and through with superstition, juju, fetish, and all the rest of it/' 
But surely no enlightened Christian of to-day takes such a view of man's 
earlier, and doubtless on the whole less successful, experiments in the pursuit 
of religious truth. Mr Conybeare, however, on his part, makes short work of 
the hypothesis of a religious evolution. " It is not clear," he says, " that 
the theory of a progressive revelation as applied by the clergy is anything 
more than a lame excuse for adhering to old, but false, weights and 
measures." And he proceeds : 

"The crescent moon is no less bright than the full orb of fourteen 
nights ; but do the fables of the Garden of Eden, of the talking serpent, 
of the vindictive God punishing his own creatures because they desire 
knowledge, of Noah and his Ark, give any light at all ? Are they more 
respectable than the myth of Prometheus chained to the rock by Zeus 
because he revealed the use of fire to mankind ? And yet it is on such 
fables that the doctrine of human redemption, as formulated by Paul and 
promulgated in catechisms, reposes." 

Now of course the development theory of religion can easily degenerate 
into a piece of insincere cant. But to charge the clergy as a body with 
insincerity would be sheer rhetoric. Besides, what on earth or in the sky 
has the crescent moon to do with it ? A purely physical analogy cannot 
prevail against the psychological law that all growth of knowledge and 
belief and friendly relations must be from vague, confused, and inconsistent 
towards clear, determinate, and coherent, and this as a direct implication 
of the only method available in such a case, namely, the method of trial 
and error. 

R. R. MARKTT. 
OXFORD. 



942 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

The Pauline Epistles: A Critical Study. By Robert Scott, M.A., D.D., 
Bombay. Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark, 1909. 

THE attitude of Dr Scott is frank and fearless, but, unlike critics such as 
Dr Van Manen, he is no iconoclast. His work is a sane and moderate 
attempt to solve the problem of these Epistles by the application of critical 
methods. He rejects the Pauline authorship of eight out of the thirteen 
of them, and regards the remaining five as in part composite. His 
argument is based entirely upon internal data " a theory of authorship 
based on characteristics of thought and style. 11 The clue he uses is, 
certainly, only a hypothesis, and may, on this ground, be called unscientific ; 
but do not all inquiries need some theory to give them coherence, and to 
supply a centre around which facts may crystallise ? The important point 
is Does the author's theory furnish a key that unlocks the problem better 
than any other ? Are the differences, clear to all readers, best explained 
by assuming that Paul came under Greek influence, and that there was a 
development in his thought ; or by the hypothesis that some of these 
writings are from other hands ? The triumph of either alternative is not 
yet within sight. 

Dr Scott's position is that some of the Epistles are genuinely Pauline, 
that all are saturated with the Pauline spirit, and that there was in the 
Early Church a school of writers who interpreted the Gospel from Paul's point 
of view, at the same time giving to it a bias of their own. These Epistles 
in substance are Pauline, but are, like " official despatches issued by the 
head of a department, written by unknown subordinates." They are 
divided by Dr Scott into four groups, and written respectively by Paul and 
his younger associates Silas, Timothy, and Luke. The first and strictly 
Pauline group consists of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, and 
Philippians, with the exception of certain sections. These five Epistles are 
supposed to contain " Paul's Gospel," and are said to be self-evidencingly 
his. But is not such a method eclectic and arbitrary ? To select a certain 
number of Epistles, and to say, a priori, that their contents alone are 
Pauline, rejecting those containing a different but not contradictory 
teaching, seems illogical ; and to assume that Paul ought to have said this, 
that, and the other in these disputed letters is scarcely scientific criticism. 

The second group contains Ephesians i. and ii., Thessalonians (in 
part), parts of Romans, and sections of Corinthians i. and ii., with other 
New Testament writings. The writer of these was Silas. The third 
group consists of 1 Thessalonians i.-iii. ; 2 Thessalonians iii. ; Colossians, 
Philemon : of these Timothy was the author. The fourth group contains 
the Pastoral Epistles, of which the writer was "probably" Luke. Dr 
Scott makes the first group the standard by which he judges the rest, and 
concludes, on various grounds (not, however, set out in any order), that 
the latter cannot be the work of Paul. 

1. In most of them, especially in the Pastoral Epistles, there are present 
Greek terms and ideas quite foreign to Paul. He was brought up a 



PAULINE EPISTLES 943 

Pharisee, was " ignorant of secular culture, and antagonistic to the ideas of 
other lands," while his categories of thought were entirely Rabbinical. But 
the fact that he was primarily a Jew does not preclude the idea that he 
came under the influence of Greek culture. His writings may show that 
his syntax was imperfect ; yet, as Deismann and E. L. Hicks argue, his 
language and style betray the genuine Greek, and this is as observable in 
Galatians and Ephesians (parts of the genuine group) as in the Pastoral 
Epistles. The preacher on Mars Hill is no mere Pharisee, but a cosmo- 
politan, free from Jewish narrowness. Moreover, his general attitude 
towards the Gentiles points to the broadening influence of Graeco-Roman 
culture. When the vision of Christ broke up his former life and he 
retired into Arabia to recast his faith under the light of that new revela- 
tion, the influence of Tarsus would be considerable ; and it seems psycho- 
logically probable that his universalism came from these earlier and 
broader surroundings rather than from the more circumscribed atmosphere 
of Pharisaism. Traces of Greek thought are present in his great chapter 
(1 Cor. xv.), where psychological views of Resurrection jostle with the 
more material conceptions of the Pharisees; and in 2 Cor. v., Socratic 
rather than Palestinian ideas of a future life are reflected. Also in Paul's 
striking contrasts (Romans), there are indications of the dualism of Greek 
philosophy. 

2. Style. There are, no doubt, stylistic differences between the first 
and other groups. The style of the first is direct, abrupt, vigorous, 
" Cromwellian," and occasionally ambiguous ; while that of the latter 
of Ephesians especially is flowing, eloquent, " Miltonic," and occasionally 
involved ; the style of the former is that of a reported address, while that of 
the latter is literary. Moreover, Paul abounds in antitheses and paradoxes, 
while his disciples avoid them, or use triplicates instead. But the 
argument from style is precarious. A writer usually has his own distinct 
style which distinguishes him from others. But an author, when in 
different moods, may differ even from himself, of which Carlyle's John 
Sterling and Sartor Resarius are examples. In the "genuine" group 
Paul differs from himself. How different in style is his Hagar allegory 
from the Corinthian love-lyric. Being a man of moods, nervous, impulsive, 
sameness would be most unlikely. But the differences most probably arose 
from the employment of amanuenses. His method presumably was to 
dictate his ideas to one of those, who, while retaining some of Paul's words 
and phrases, would clothe the thought in language of his own. 

3. Several Epistlos and parts of Epistles (Rom. xii., xiii., xv.) are 
considered non-Pauline because they consist largely of exhortation ; indeed 
the second is called the " Exhortation group," and exhortation is contrary 
to the genius of Paul, whose basis of morality is " God in man " rather 
than a detailed set of regulations. To make such a distinction seems far- 
fetched ; for what could be more natural than for the Apostle to enforce 
his teaching by practical appeal, and crown his argument by an exhortation. 
Dr Scott tacitly admits this to be sometimes Paul's practice. In the 



944 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Philippian letter the ethical element preponderates, and no clear line of 
distinction is made between the hortatory and the doctrinal parts. 

4. Again, in some of the later groups, especially in Ephesians and the 
Pastoral Epistles, the ideas of Church and Priesthood are more fully 
developed than in the earlier. With Paul the Church is a local community ; 
with the writer of, say, Ephesians it has become the aggregate body of 
believers throughout all lands. But, on the other hand, in this Epistle the 
priesthood, which usually develops pari passu with ecclesiasticism, is absent. 
It is an Epistle " steeped in Paulinism," and in language it is a " mosaic of 
Pauline phraseology. " What more fitting conclusion than that it is from 
the hand of Paul, and that its views of the Church are the Apostle's later 
ideas ? But it is more difficult to defend the Pastoral Epistles, where the 
idea of the ministry is considerably advanced. That their author was 
Luke is not new, and is favoured, amongst others, by Harnack and M'Giftert. 
It seems probable that Luke possessed fragments of Paul's letters, which he 
worked up later in this form. This view preserves the Pauline character 
of the letters, and frees the author from the charge of forgery. 

5. Further philosophical considerations lead to questioning. There are 
traces of Gnosticism (Colossians) and of Alexandrian philosophy. These 
theosophisings, so it is argued, are foreign to Paul's mind, and later than 
his day. But there was ample time for their development during his life ; 
and that they should affect some of the Churches is probable, seeing that 
Colosse and Laodicea were cities where such systems and cults had had 
their home for centuries. Moreover, incipient Gnosticism is not absent 
from the authentic group (1 Cor. viii. 6), where the pre-existent Christ, 
although not an emanation from the Godhead, is regarded as the instrument 
of creation. 

6. The presence of apocalyptic elements in some of the Epistles, 
especially in Thess. i. and ii., is regarded as evidence against them. 
On other grounds their authority may be disputed, particularly the fact 
that Paul's specific doctrines are absent, but certainly not because they 
contain apocalyptic teaching. Indeed it seems most reasonable, and especi- 
ally if 1 Thessalonians be his earliest Epistle, that the Apostle should have 
expected the immediate return of Christ, seeing that such a belief was so 
universal and persistent in the early Church. Moreover, there are 
apocalyptic hints hi the authentic Epistles, e.g. 1 Cor. xi. 26, xv. 20-35. 

7. But theological and doctrinal differences supply the chief evidence. 
Because of these, it is argued, if Paul be the author of the one group, he 
cannot be of the other. In the one the teaching is forensic the law is 
central ; sin is expiated, not forgiven, atoned for, not remitted but in the 
other it is ethical. With Paul, Christ is ever the Redeemer ; with the others, 
He is the Great Example. With Paul, righteousness is a new life ; with the 
others, a new moral law, with new precepts. In the first group sonship 
comes through adoption, in the others it is ethical. With Paul, Christ is 
not absolutely God ; with the others, He is God in His fulness. These are 
some of the contrasts made, but by no means all. It must be admitted 



PAULINE EPISTLES 945 

that different ideas are emphasised in one group as compared with another, 
and that ideas prominent in one are in the background in another ; but may 
not this arise from the circumstances under which they were written, and on 
account of their being sent to different people ? Besides, the same ideas are 
present, although not prominent, in all the letters ; and also, in the genuine 
Epistles there is apparently discrepant teaching. In Cor. i. the Resurrec- 
tion is largely a re-animation of the body, whereas in Cor. ii. it is the 
clothing of the spirit with the " house that is from heaven." In Philippians 
the Apostle expects to die before he meets with Christ, but in Corinthians 
he hopes to be alive at his Lord's return. 

The morality of the practice of writing in the name of another is 
defended on the ground that different ideas of literary etiquette or honesty 
prevailed then from what prevail to-day, a writer considering that he was 
honouring the dead by sending out a letter or treatise in their name. But 
such a defence is little needed when it is remembered that the letters them- 
selves, at least several of them, state that a companion of the Apostle 
unites with him in the task of writing; and when it is conceded, as 
it is by Dr Scott, that many of the personal messages and salutations are 
from the actual pen of Paul. 

Our author tells us that this volume is a " preliminary sketch." We 
look forward with high hopes to further work from the pen of a writer 
who has already made a valuable contribution to an important and 
perennially fascinating study. 

W. JONES-DAVIES. 

HARTLEY COLLEGE,. MANCHESTER. 



The Person of Our Lord and Recent Th-ought. By Charles Frederick 
Nolloth, M.A., Oriel College, Oxford, formerly Rector of All Saints', 
Lewes. London : Macmillan & Co., 1908. 

THIS volume is evidence of the uneasiness caused by recent New Testament 
criticism even in the most conservative school. Some parts of that criticism 
the author regards as mere " eccentricity," and finds comfort from the 
thought that " as in physiology abnormal developments are occasionally to 
be met with and are thought of sufficient interest to be preserved in 
museums, so in the province of history grotesque and eccentric theories 
will sometimes deserve mention, if only it be to serve as warnings against 
the consequences of unhealthy prejudice and warped methods of inquiry." 
Nevertheless the household of faith is much disturbed by the knowledge 
that these critics are abroad. And the present guardian plainly tells the 
inmates that it is useless to resent the application of all the instruments 
these critics have at command. He even deems it prudent to warn them 
that " some loss " may easily befall them, and prepares them for the time 
when " we find we can no longer regard as part of the faith something 
which is dear from old association." The bulk of our possessions, he 
VOL. VII. No. 4. 60 



946 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

admits, may be diminished, but he consoles the somewhat frightened house- 
holder with the reflection that there will be " corresponding gain in security 
of tenure, in sharpness of outline, and in the clearness with which we can 
see what we are able to retain." 

When the author gets to work we quickly see that he is no half-hearted 
apologist. In dealing with the "sources" he discriminates between the 
evidential values to be assigned to the Synoptists and the Fourth Gospel, 
but in such a manner as to prove plainly that he entertains no doubt as 
to Johannine authorship or the historical validity of the narrative. 
Dividing the " sources " into Christian and non-Christian, he discusses the 
meagre references to Christ in the latter. Of Philo he says " there is no 
doubt that he was acquainted with Christ and Christianity."" There is 
no warrant whatever for this statement. Philo is altogether silent as to 
Christ. And this is the more remarkable from the circumstance that 
he was in Palestine in A.D. 39. He was keenly interested in all the 
religious movements of his time, and we may accept Kenan's view that 
his silence is due to the fact that he had never heard of Jesus. The 
author's courage of assertion is yet further evidenced by the fact that he 
still quotes one of the passages found in Josephus. He omits, however, 
to mention the silence of another author. The elder Pliny compiled a 
laborious work in which he gathered together all the unusual natural 
phenomena he had ever heard of. He chronicles an alleged curious failure 
of light that followed the murder of Caesar. Now the crucifixion of Jesus 
took place in the reign of Tiberius. It was accompanied by stupendous 
natural phenomena (Matt, xxvii. 45, 51-53). These events took place 
during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, both of whom were 
curious inquirers into such things. Yet they never mention them. But 
the whole subject of the silence of non-Christian writers deserves a much 
more thorough investigation than it obtains in this book. 

Students will not be reassured by the undue prominence given in this 
work to the Petrine element in Mark. When this is regarded along with 
the fact that there is no reference, or, at most, a doubtful one, to the 
Pauline influence it becomes significant. For whatever were the "sources" 
open to the writer of Mark, he carefully selects such as bring into vivid 
relief the struggle with the authorities, passes lightly by all evidence as 
to the inner life of the community, and almost entirely suppresses " sayings" 
which show Jesus' conservative attitude to Jewish law and life. These are 
Pauline notes, and the failure to recognise them is a curious feature. 

When he comes to deal with the question of the historicity of Jesus 
our author fails to show that he has fully realised the elements of the 
problem. The question is not to be ruled out of court as an 
" eccentricity," fit only for a theological museum. Apart from the 
silences already noted there is the astonishing silence of Paul. Our author 
does not consider the great probability there is for the statement that 
Paul must have been in Jerusalem if his own account of the matter 
(Acts xxii. 23) is to be accepted in or about the time of the crucifixion. 



PERSON OF CHRIST 947 

Scholars of repute have been driven to account for this silence by the 
theory that he was then temporarily absent. Then there is the almost 
total silence of the epistles both as to the life and to the teaching of the 
Master. Not one of the parables is mentioned, there is no reference to any 
specific miracles, not a single " saying " from the Sermon on the Mount is 
quoted, though this is now regarded by such scholars as the Rev. Dr 
Horton as the eternally binding ethical code of Christianity, and the 
whole of the life that lies behind the public ministry is left entirely 
unnoticed. This will seem all the more remarkable when we consider the 
inner meaning of the Apostle's contention with the Judaising Christians. 
He contended for the freedom of the spirit as opposed to the tyranny of 
the letter of the law. But this was also part of the quarrel Jesus is said 
to have had with the sticklers for the law. Now if Paul had quoted the 
teaching ascribed to Jesus say as to meats, or as to the Sabbath the 
saying would have been decisive in his favour. Why did he not do this ? 
There are two conceivable answers. We may suppose that Jesus did not 
then occupy the position of absolutely divine authority which he sub- 
sequently came to fill. Certain passages in the epistles, however, make it 
extremely difficult to hold this theory. Then there is the alternative that 
Paul did not know of sayings that would have been so entirely in his 
favour. Our author complains that " there is a disposition on the part of 
some critics to demand a kind of proof which is never required in other 
lines of historical investigation." Let us test this. Let us suppose that a 
recent convert to Irish Home Rule is anxious to make out a case for the 
theory that this had been for a quarter of a century the accepted policy of 
the Liberal party. He exhausts the possibilities of ingenious argument, 
yet omits all reference to the life and teaching of Gladstone. If, in other 
respects, our convert proved himself an honest, capable, and competent 
writer, we could account for the omission only by the theory that he did 
not know of them. 

In the chapter on " The Messiah " the author holds the customary view 
with unfaltering conviction. " Our Lord believed that, in the fullest and 
truest sense, He was the Messiah of prophecy, the Christ of God, ' He that 
should come into the world," the Anointed King of His people, the Son of 
David." He is glad enough to avail himself of the help of distinguished 
Continental scholars in fortifying this position, though he drops them 
quickly later on. For himself he relies on a more than doubtful interpre- 
tation of the Greek texts, without reference to the Aramaic. This 
method is scarcely permissible to-day. It is nearly certain that Jesus did 
not speak Greek but Aramaic. Important consequences flow from this 
fact. Professor Schmidt (The Prophet of Nazareth) has shown that the 
only Aramaic word in general use as the original for " Son of Man " simply 
means " man," " member of the human race." Outside Christian literature 
it never occurs as a Messianic term. That the disciples subsequently read 
this meaning into it is true ; but as used by Jesus among his hearers the 
Aramaic term would not convey a Messianic idea, nor would they think 



948 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

that he was claiming Messiahship. And then, having in view the author's 
use of the Fourth Gospel, it is worth while asking, is the genius of the 
Aramaic capable of expressing such philosophical subtleties as this docu- 
ment puts into the mouth of a Galilean artisan ? And the Messiahship 
is closely connected with the view of Jesus as " Son of David." Our 
author, as has been shown, is a stout defender of this view. The only 
real attempts at working out this theory in the Gospels are the genea- 
logical tables. Now these trace the descent through Joseph, while, 
according to the customary view, Joseph had nothing whatever to do 
with the birth of Jesus. This difficulty has not occurred to our author. 

So stout a defender of the faith finds a natural conclusion to his 
inquiry in the two closing chapters of the book. Interpreting the results 
at which he has arrived, he finds that (1) Jesus Christ was " man but more 
than man," and (2) " Jesus Christ is God." It is interesting to note that 
in order to reach these conclusions he has had to part company with 
nearly all the distinguished Continental scholars on whose help he relied 
while dealing with the " historicity " problem. The claims made on behalf 
of Jesus in these two chapters are stupendous. They rest on forced 
interpretations of Greek terms, foreign to the Aramaic which Jesus 
spoke, and involving metaphysical and philosophical difficulties which 
have bewildered and divided Christendom along the whole line of its 
history. The " Christ " of Paul is a different being from the Jesus of the 
Synoptists ; he was a super-mundane being existing in heaven before Jesus 
was born. He belongs to a different order of thought, too, from the 
" Logos " of the Johannine- Alexandrian circle of ideas. The " Son " who 
is " a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec " presents us with a 
concept of being different in kind from the " second Adam," " the Lord 
from Heaven" of the Pauline type of thought. And then there is 
the Apocalyptic type, coming down from Daniel to the Dispersion and 
introducing us to yet another world of speculation. These are very 
inadequately interpreted when regarded as " phases " or " aspects " of one 
commanding Personality. They point to radical differences in quality of 
being. The idea of the Infinite, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient 
God being pent up within the confines of a limited and fleeting human 
personality, and in that form being killed and buried, is an idea that refuses 
to adjust itself to the laws of human thought. Most instructive parallels to 
several features in this conception of the slain God, and to the Eucharistic 
institution subsequently based upon it, are to be found in those Oriental 
cults which pervaded that social order where our Gospels were written. 
So close are these parallelisms that Christian Fathers, such as Tertullian, 
accounted for them by the theory that the devil, to discredit Christianity, 
had suggested them to the heathen. For driving "home "these contra- 
dictories it is certain that the present writer will not escape being labelled 
by our author as " eccentric," or relegated to a theological " museum." 

R. ROBERTS. 
BRADFORD. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

OF RECENT BOOKS AND ARTICLES. 



A RELIGION 1 Nature 2 Philos. 3 
Psychol. 8 Christianity 10 Nat. Relig. 
15 Relig. and Science. 

1 MacColl (Alexander) A Working The- 
ology. 99p. Scribner, 1909. 

[The aim has been not so much to fathom ulti- 
mate problems as to set forth a religious faith 
which will prove a strong working basis for 
everyday life.] 

Palmer ( W. Scott} Studies in the Teach- 
ing of Religion. 94p. Longmans, 1909. 

[A plea for facing resolutely the problems of 
religion instead of evading their difficulties.] 

2 Sorel (G.) La religion d'aujourd'hui. 

R. de Met. et de Morale, Mar. and May 1909. 

[Deals with the treatment of religion in the 
works of Boutroux, W. James, Ritschl, Reinach, 
and Le Roy.] 

Jones (Henry) Idealism as a Practical 
Creed. 299p. MacLehose, 1909. 

[Lectures delivered before the University of 
Sydney. Review will follow.] 

Worcester (Ehwod) The Living Word. 
'296p. Hodder & Stoughton, 1909. 

["This book," says the author, "owes its ex- 
istence, its substance, and whatever merit it 
possesses to one of the greatest and least appreci- 
ated thinkers of the nineteenth century, Gustav 
Theodor Fechner." The author also expresses in- 
debtedness to "thewonderfulpoet!Riickert." The 
volume deals thoughtfully with the questions as 
to the nature of God and of God's relation to the 
soul, as to Death, and the grounds on which we 
hope to survive it.] 

Tennant (F. .) The Grounds of Belief 
in God : An Essay in Apologetics. 

Church Q. R., April 1909. 

[The existence of God can never be strictly 
proved. But the speculative justification for the 
objective validity of our finite knowledge and 
for the Being of God is one and the same.] 

Sevan (J. 0. ) The Genesis and Evolution 
of the Individual Soul scientifically treated, 
including also Problems relating to Science 
and Immortality. 177p. 

Williams & Norgate, 1909. 

[Makes use of recent theories of matter in 
attempting to frame an idea of the " new body " 
acquired by the soul after doath.] 

Schubert (Johannes) Hegels Gottesbegriff. 

Z. f. Phil. u. phil. Krit., cxxxiv. 1, 1909. 

[An able discussion especially of Hegel's treat- 
ment of the Trinity. Hegel recognises the full 
historical importance of the life of Christ- 
words such as those of the Sermon on the Mount 
were the greatest ever spoken but the real 
philosophical significance of Christ turns not on 
his life but on his death.] 

Armstrong (Charles Wicksteed) The 
Mystery of Existence in the Light of an 
Optimistic Philosophy. 143 p. 

Longmans, 1909. 



I Maintains there is but one Spirit in the known 
universe, of which Spirit all conscious thincs 
form a part ; that the tendency of evolution Is 
towards individualiaation, no less in the spirit 
world than in the material, and that between 
the individual self and the world-spirit is the 
Subliminal Self, partly individualised.) 

Cecil (Algernon) Six Oxford Thinkers. 
Slip. Murray, 1909. 

[Essays on Gibbon, J. H. Newman, chur.h, 
Froude, Pater, and Lord Morley. To depict, and 
in some degree to discuss the progress of Oxford 
thought in the nineteenth century by the light 
of the careers and characters of certain powerful 
Oxford intellects is the aim of these studies.] 

3 Starbuck (E. D.) The Child- Mind and 
Child-Religion. VI. The Religion of Adol- 
escence. Bibl. World, Jan. 1909. 

Durand - Pallot (C.) L'esclavage du 
peche. Rev. chret., April 1909. 

[Sin, in the beginning, may be exclusively moral. 
Once committed, it has an organic base and be- 
comes by degrees an organic slavery since every 
psychological phenomenon has a physiological 
equivalent.] 

Stalker (James) Studies in Conversion. 

II. Constantino the Great. 

Expositor, April 1909. 
Stalker (James) Studies in Conversion. 

III. St Augustine. Expositor, June 1909. 
Garvie (A. E.) The Personal Equation 

in Theology. Cont. R., June 1909. 

[Maintains there are prevalent two types of 
piety, which lie at the root of the differences of 
theological opinion what James has called 
hecdthy-mindedness and what may be called 
broke u -heartedncss, which is healed only by the 
redeeming grace of Christ.] 

4 Wedgwood (Julia) Nineteenth-Century 
Teachers, and other Essays. 427p. 

Hodder & Stoughton, 1909. 

[A number of studies republished mainly from 

the Contemporary Review and the Spectator. 

They represent the thoughts and convictions of 

about thirty years.] 

5 Perry (Ralph B. ) The Moral Justification 
of Religion. Harvard Theol. R. , April 1909. 

[It is the function of the religious leader to 
make men lovers, not of the parts, but of the 
whole of goodness. ] 

8 Davis (J. D.) The Seat of Authority in 
the Christian Religion. 

Bibliotheca Sac., April 1908. 
[In the combination of Bible, Church, and 
individual Christian consciousness.] 

Swedenborg (E.) The True Christian 
Religion. Abridged from the Latin work. 
246p. Warne, 1909. 

[A cheap and serviceable abridgment.] 
10 Ward (W. H.) A Fragment of the 
Cosmologic Argument. 

Amer. J. Th., April 1909. 



949 



950 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



Martincngo-Cesaresco (Countess Evelyn) 
The Place of Animals in Human Thought. 
376p. Unwin, 1909. 

[An extremely interesting book. There are 
chapters on the Greek, Roman, Zoroastrian, and 
Hebrew conceptions of animals, and in a final 
chapter the growth of modern ideas about 
animals is discussed.] 

15 Compton-JRickett (Joseph) Origins and 

Faiths : An Essay of Reconciliation. 282p. 

Hodder & Stoughton, 1909. 

[A contribution towards finding a reasonable 
basis for belief which shall bring into practical 
agreement the religious and scientific systems, 
preserving at the same time the essential truth of 
great traditions.] 

Granger (Frank) The Meaning of Ex- 
perience for Science and Religion. 

Inter. J. Eth., April 1909. 

An Unknown Man. " Which is," or The 
Unknown God. 252p. Alden, Oxford, 1909. 

[The same law of gravitation which governs 
all material phenomena governs likewise all 
spiritual being, and is involved with evolution in 
the work of the re-spiritualisation of matter.] 

Anon. The Mistakes of Darwin and his 
Would-be Followers. 

Bibliotheca Sac., April 1909. 



B BIBLE 1 Old Test. 5 New Test. 
9 Apocrypha. 

Picton (J. Allansori) Man and the Bible : 
A Review of the Place of the Bible in 
Human History. 334p. 

Williams & Norgate, 1909. 
[Review will follow.] 

a Cruveilhier (P. ) Les principaux resultats 
des fouilles de Suse, et leur rapports avec 
la Bible. (1st art.) 

R. du Clerg6 frangais, April 15, 1909. 
Hogg(H. W.} Orientalia. 

Interpreter, April 1909. 
[Deals with new finds and new texts.] 
Montgomery (J. A.) A New Aramaic 
Inscription of Biblical Interest. 

Bibl. World, Feb. 1909. 
[The Inscription of Zakar, King of Hamath, dis- 
covered by Pognon.] 

b Geden (Alfred S.) Outlines of Introduc- 
tion to the Hebrew Bible. 382p. 

T. & T. Clark, 1909. 

[The chapters of this book have formed sub- 
stantially the groundwork or basis of a series of 
lectures introductory to the study of the Old 
Testament, which for several years have been 
delivered at the Wesleyan College, Richmond. 
The writer holds a conservative position with 
regard to modern controversies on the author- 
ship of the Pentateuch and the books of the Old 
Testament in general.] 
i (Brook, K.) The Bible and Religion. 

Interpreter, April 1909. 
[1st paper. The Bible is inspiring ; is it 
i-aspired ? ] 

Rogers (A.) Prophecy and Poetry. 
Studies in Isaiah and Browning. (The 
Bohlen Lectures for 1909.) 279p. 

Longmans, 1909. 
q Knight ( Wm. ) The Lake of Galilee. 

Interpreter, April 1909. 
Driver (S. R.) Modern Research as 
illustrating the Bible. (Schweich Lectures 
of the British Academy, 1908.) 103p. 

Frowde, 1909. 
[First some account ia given of the progress 



made during the past century in the principal 
branches of research relating to Biblical study, 
and then an outline of the new knowledge re- 
specting Palestine which has been obtained 
recently, partly from inscriptions and partly 
from excavations.] 

Robinson (R. J.) Damascus: The Pearl 

of the Desert. Bibl. World, Mar. 1909. 

Oonder (Col. C. R.) The City of 

Jerusalem. 334p. Murray, 1909. 

r Smith (J. M, P.) and Burton (E. D.) 

The Biblical Doctrine of Atonement. 

Bibl. World, Jan. 1909. 
[Concluding article, distinguishing the funda- 
mental elements from the incidental, and com- 
paring the teachings of the various periods.] 

Wood (I. F.) The Biblical Doctrine of 
the Holy Spirit and Present Religious Life. 
Bibl. World, April 1909. 
y Pillion (L. Cl.) Les etapes du 
rationalism e dans ses attaques centre les 
Evangiles et la Vie de J.-C. 

R. du Clerge frangais, April 1, 1909. 
[Begins with the rationalist assaults of 
Reimarus.] 

la Gray (G. .) The Excavations at Gezer 
and Religion in Ancient Palestine. 

Expos., May 1909. 

h Steinmetzer (F.) Das heilige Salbol des 
Alten Bundes. Bibl. Ztschr. , Heft 1 , 1909. 
p M'Fadyen (J. JE.) Communion with 
God in the Bible. I. In the Old Testa- 
ment Prophets. Bibl. World, Feb. 1909. 
r Badt (W. F.) The Growth of Ethical 
Ideals in Old Testament Times. 

Bibl. World, Mar. 1909. 

Brown (S. L. ) Messianic Interpretation. 

Interpreter, April 1909. 

[Macbride Sermon before the University of 

Oxford last January.] 

Gordon (A. It.) The Spirit of Freedom 

in the Law. Bibl. World, April 1909. 

M'Fadyen (J. E. ) Communion with God 

in the Bible. II. In the Historical Books 

of the Old Testament. 

Bibl. World, April 1909. 

s Fell ( W. ) Der Bibelkanon des Flavins 
Josephus. a. Das Zeugnis C. Ap. 1. 8 und 
der Umfang des Kanons. 

Bibl. Ztschr., Heft 1, 1909. 

2B King (E. G.) Enoch and the Feast of 

Dedication. Interpreter, April 1909. 

["Enoch's" walk with God is connected with 

the Hanukka dedication procession, and both 

relate'd to solar mythology.] 

Magoun(H. W.} The Glacial Epoch and 
the Noachian Deluge. 

Bibliotheca Sac., April 1909. 

[First of a series of papers to show that, ' ' if the 

Biblical version is a true account, a score of diffl. 

cult geological problems can be simply solved." ] 

D Smith (H. P.] The Red Heifer. 

Amer. J. Th., April 1909. 
[The Levitical rite of the red heifer is a survival 
from animistic religion naturalised in the law of 
Israel.] 

E Wiener (II. M. ) Essays in Pentateuchal 
Criticism. IV. The Concluding Chapters 
of Numbers. Bibliotheca Sac., April 1909. 
K Jordan (W. G.) Homiletics and Criti- 
cism : 2 Samuel xxi. 1-14. 

Bibl. World, Jan. 1909. 
[Attempts to show how, with critical pre- 
suppositions, such a difficult story can be used 
homiletically.] 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 951 



Caspari ( W. ) Literarische Art und 
historischer Wert von 2 Sam. 15-20. 

Theolog. Studien, May 1909. 

N Burkitt (F. G.) The Lucianic Text of 

1 Kings viii. 53b. J. Th. St., April 1909. 

r Smith (C. E. ) Ethics of the Mosaic Law. 

Bibliotheca Sac., April 1909. 

3B Vidal (J. M.) L'idee de resurrection 

dans Job. 

R. du Clerge frangais, Mar. 15, 1909. 
[The idea does not appear in Job.] 
E Gordon (A. R.) Psalm 87. 

Bibl. World, Feb. 1909. 
[Expository.] 

5 Gilbert (Q. H.) How Men have read 
The Song of Songs. Bibl. World, Mar. 1 909. 

[Giving some account of the fanciful interpreta- 
tions that have been held.] 

5k Moulton (J. H.) and Milligan (G.) 
Lexical Notes from the Papyri. 

Expos., April, May, and June 1909. 
Kenyon (F. G. ) The Numeration of New 
Testament Manuscripts. 

Church Q. R., April 1909. 
r Labourt (J. ) Le peche originel, dans la 
tradition juive contemporaine de Notre- 
Seigneur et dans Saint Paul. 

R. du Clerge franais, April 1, 1909. 
y Whittaker (Thomas) The Origins of 
Christianity. With an Outline of Van 
Manen's Analysis of the Pauline Literature. 
2nd ed., containing an Appendix on 
Galatians. 260p. Watts & Co., 1909. 

[In the preface the author states that the study 
he has recently made of a new work on Judaism, 
by M. Edouard Dujardin, La Source du Fleuve 
Chretien, and of the line of criticism by which it 
has been prepared in France, has led him to 
modify his view on the O.T.] 

Wrede (William) The Origin of the 
New Testament. (Library of Living 
Thought.) 152p. Harper & Brothers, 1909. 
[A plain and, considering the limits of space, 
an exhaustive account of the present condition 
of criticism of N.T. origins from what is com- 
monly known as the standpoint of the "ad- 
vanced" school.] 

Turner (C. H.) Historical Introduction 
to the Textual Criticism of the New Testa- 
ment. III. The Contents of the Canon of the 
New Testament : (B) The (Pauline) Epistles. 
J. Th. St., April 1909. 

6 Davis (T. K.) The New Birth. 

Bibliotheca Sac., April 1909. 

Goodspeed (E. J.) The Freer Gospels and 
Shenute of Atripe. Bibl. World, Mar. 1909. 

[Discusses the provenance of the MS.] 

Turton (Lt.-Col. W. H.) How the Resur- 
rection Narratives explain one another. 

Expos., May 1909. 

Verrall(A. W.) Christ before Herod. 

J. Th. St., April 1909. 

[Christ is sent to Herod that his Galilean record 
may be inquired into, for Pilate's guidance in 
judgment. Herod, with his soldiers (i.e. having 
strong military forces) "thought nothing" of 
Christ as a political danger, was favourably im- 
pressed, gave Christ a rich garment as a mark 
of favour, and sent him back to Pilate with a 
clear record.] 

Giran(Etienne) Jesus de Nazareth : Notes 
historiques et critiques. 2nd ed., entiere- 
ment remaniee d'apres les plus recents tra- 
vaux exegetiques. (Bibliotheque de Critique 
religieuse.) 205p. Nourry, 1909. 



r Knight (W. A.) Social Outlook in 
Matthew and Luke. 

Bibliotheca Sac., April 1909. 
Lebreton (J.) Les origines de 1'Apolo- 
g<Hique chivtienne. III. Le message du 
Christ d'apres les Synoptiques. 

R. prat. d T Apologet.,Mar. 1, 1909. 

Abbott (Edwin A.) The Message of the 

Son of Man. 188p. Black, 1909. 

[The title "Son of Man "was adopted by Christ 

not from apocryphal but solely from Biblical 

sources, so as to indicate tin- Man niade in the 

image of God and destined to have dominion 

over the Beast.] 

y JHoulton (J. H.) Some Criticisms on 
Professor Harnack's Sayings of Jesus. 

Expos., May 1909. 

Hall ( Charles C. ) Christ and the Eastern 
Soul: The Witness of the Oriental Con- 
sciousness to Jesus Christ. (Burrows Lec- 
tures, 1900-1907.) 249p. 

Univ. of Chicago Press, 1909. 
[Adopts largely the position of Absolute Ideal- 
ism, but not in regard to the Will and Moral 
Freedom.] 

D Mangenot (E.) Les e'le'ments secondaires 
etredactionnels du ' ' discours des paraboles," 
Marc iv. 1-34. 

R. du Clerge francais, April 15, 1909. 

[Furnishes an opportunity of showing how the 

presence of these elements need not affect the 

question of Scriptural inspiration and authority.] 

Lake (Kirsopp) The Date of Q. 

Expositor, June 1909. 

[Every year after 50 A.D. increasingly im- 
probable.] 

Soares (T. G.) The Worth of a Man: 
An Exposition of Mark v. 1-20. 

Bibl. World, Feb. 1909. 

E Landersdorfer (P.) Bemerkungen zu 
Lk. i. 26-38. Bibl. Ztschr., Heft 1, 1909. 

Selwyn (Canon E. C.) The Carefulness 
of Luke the Prophet. Expositor, June 1 909. 

[Compares Acts ix. 3 sqq., xxii. 6 sqq., xxvi. 12 
sqq., with LXX. of Dan. x. to show how closely 
St Luke has followed his original.] 

F Scott- Moncrieff( C. E. ) St John : Apostle, 
Evangelist, and Prophet. 292p. 

Nisbet, 1909. 

[A careful treatment of the Johannine question. 
The aim has been to show that the objections 
alleged against St John as the author of the 
works traditionally ascribed to him are far from 
conclusive.] 

G Bricout (J.) La valeur historique du 
quatrieme Evangile. 

R. du Clerge frangais, Jan. 1, 1909. 
[A defence.] 
H Bacon (B. W.) Aenon near to Salim. 

Bibl. World, April 1909. 
[The occurrence in Samaria in reasonable 
proximity of the names Aenon and Salim, and 
their absence from any other region of Palestine, 
should lead us provisionally to consider that 
when the Fourth Evangelist wrote the upper 
waters of the Wady Beidan were a resort of 
members of the Johannine sect, and were then 
regarded as having served the Baptist as a place 
for baptising.] 

R Anon. Resurrectio Christi : An Apology 
written from a new Standpoint and sup- 
ported by Evidence some of which is new. 
139p. Kegan Paul, 1909. 

[Arrives at a theory of the order of the Resur- 
rection appearances and the significance of 
Pentecost by examining the N.T. accounts in the 
light of psychical research, and tries to find 



952 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



corroboration of theory from early Christian 
documents.] 
W Tyson (S. L.) The Sign of Jonah. 

Bibl. World, Feb. 1909. 

[According to St Luke, the " sign " is Jonah's 
acceptance by the Ninevites; St Matthew's 
account is an expansion, and the sign is the 
miraculous deliverance of Jonah.] 
7h Kennedy (H. A. A.) The Scope and 
Function of the Apostolate in the New 
Testament. Bibl. World, Mar. 1909. 

Sharman (H. JS.) The Expanding 
Church. Bibl. World, Feb. 1909. 

[Sets forth in narrative form the history in the 
Acts relating to the growth of the Church.] 
i Case (S. J.) The Resurrection Faith of 
the First Disciples. 

Amer. J. Th., April 1909. 

[They believed the risen Jesus was heavenly, a 
visible spirit in an ethereal body.] 
8 Hicks (E. L. ) Philip the Evangelist and 
the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

Interpreter, April 1909. 

[Attributes the authorship to Philip.] 

Carr (Arthur') Covenant or Testament ? 
A Note on Hebrews ix. 16, 17. 

Expositor, April 1909. 

A Bailey (J. W.} Why was Acts written ? 
Bibl. World, Jan. 1909. 

[That fellow-Christiang might believe that 
Pauline Christianity was the true conception of 
the Gospel.) 

Ramsay (Sir W. At.) Luke's Authori- 
ties in Acts i.-xii. Expositor, April 1909. 

Baumgartner (E.) Zur Siebenzahl der 
Diakone in der Urkirche zu Jerusalem. 

Bibl. Ztschr., Heft 1, 1909. 

[ Finds, on Josephus' authority, that councils of 
seren managed affairs in Jewish towns, and the 
Apostles copied this supported by the Rabbinic 
interpretation of Dt. xvi. 18.] 

Case (S. J.) The First Christian Com- 
munity. Bibl. World, Jan. 1909. 

[Historical narrative.] 

Henke (F. G.) The Gift of Tongues and 
Related Phenomena at the Present Day. 

Arner. J. Th., April 1909. 

[The New Testament phenomena, and those of 
to-day, are both " a recrudescence of psychic 
phenomena of a low stage of culture." ] 

Lewis (F. G.) Peter's Place in the Early 
Church. Bibl. World, March 1909. 

["We not only do injustice to Peter, but 
obscure strategic events in the life of the early 
Church, if we minimise Peter's service in the 
evangelisation of the Gentile world."] 

Ramsay ( W. M. ) Luke's Authorities in 
the Acts, chapters i.-xii. Expos., May 1909. 

Riggs (J. S.) Who wrote the Book of the 
Acts? Bibl. World, Jan. 1909. 

[By the familiar arguments, Luke is found to be 
the author.] 

B Gilbert (G. H.) The Greek Element in 
Paul's Letters. Bibl. World, Feb. 1909. 

Kcnnett (R. H. ) St Paul's Reference to 
the Resurrection. I. What the "Third 
Day" implies. Interpreter, April 1909. 

[St Paul's belief in the risen body and the 
empty tomb.l 

Votaw (C. W.) The Conversion and 
Early Ministry of Paul, Acts ix. 1-31, xi. 
25-30, xiii. 1-xiv. 28 ; Gal. i. 15-24. 

Bibl. World, April 1909. 

Milligan (George) Paulinism and the 
Religion of Jesus. Expositor, June 1909. 

[The indwelling Christ was for St Paul no 
empty abstraction, but a real Person freed from 



all bodily limitations and able to make his divine 
power universally felt.] 

Garvie (Alfred E. ) Studies in the Pauline 
Theology. V. The Righteousness of God. / 
Expositor, April 1909. / 

[God's love has a moral content in the Cross 
inasmuch as sin is judged as well as forgiven, and 
therefore it exercises a moral constraint, human 
love responding to it is humble and contrite, aa 
well as grateful and devoted.] 

Garvie (Alfred E. ) Studies in the Pauline 
Theology. VI. The Sanctification of Man. 
Expositor, June 1909. 

[We do justice to Christian experience only as 
we recognise that God as Spirit Himself becomes 
progressively immanent in those to whom He 
reveals Himself and whom He redeems in His 
Son.] 

J Robinson (J. Armitage) St Paul's 
Epistle to the Ephesians : An Exposition. 
199p. Macmillan, 1909. 

[A separate issue of the first portion of the 
Dean of Westminster's Commentary on the 
Epistle to the Ephesians, published in 1903.] 

L Williams (A. L.) The Cult of th 
Angels at Colossae. J. Th. St., April 1909. 
N Ramsay (Sir W. M.) Historical Com- 
mentary on the First Epistle to Timothy. 

Expositor, June 1909. 

[Deals with: i. Purpose of the Letter, ii. 
Author; iii. Words peculiar to the Pastoral 
Epistles; iv. Difficulties encountered by Timothy 
in his charge at Ephesus.] 

9 Mangenot (E.) Histoire et sagesse 
d'Ahikar 1'Assyrien. 

R. du Clerge fra^ais, Mar. 15, 1909 
[Discusses the relation of the work to some of 
the O.T. writings.] 

Mari (F. ) Le idee escatologiche del libro 
di Enoch (concluded). 

Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Tool. , Mar. 1909. 

Pentin (H.) The Inspiration of th 

Apocrypha. Interpreter, April 1909. 

Winsiedt (E. 0.) Addenda to " Som 

Coptic Apocryphal Legends. " 

J. Th. St., April 1909. 
[Another fragment of a text, and translation.) 



C CHURCH 14 Social Problems, 20 
Polity, 42 Liturgical, 50 Sacramento, 
60 Missions. 

14 Figgis (J. tf.) The Gospel and Human 
Needs. Being the Hulsean Lectures 
delivered before the University of Cam- 
bridge, 1908-9. 209p. Longmans, 1909. 

[Review will follow.] 

15 Anon. Evolution and the Church. 

Quar. R., April 1909. 

20 Pearson (Alfred) The Ethics of Division. 

Church Q. R., April 1909. 

21 Mott (John R.) The Future Leadership 
of the Church. 193 p. 

Hodder & Stoughton, 1909. 

[Deals in a very careful way with the question 
as to the means of recruiting the ranks of the 
Christian ministry.] 

26 Putnam (James J.) The Service to 
Nervous Invalids of the Physician and the 
Minister. Harvard Theol. R., April 1909. 

[Physicians should stand for the skilled employ- 
ment of special means of preventing disease, with 
all its causes, and of treating sick persons ; clergy, 
men represent the main agency by which the 
demoralisation of invalidism is counteracted.] 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 953 



Powell (Lyman P.) The Emmanuel 

Movement in a New England Town. 206p. 

Putnam, 1909. 

[A systematic account of experiments and re- 
flections designed to determine the proper rela- 
tionship between the minister and the doctor in 
the light of modern needs. Gives an account of 
the aims and methods of the movement initiated 
by Dr Worcester.] 

40 Bishop (E.) Liturgical Comments and 

Memoranda. J. Th. St., April 1909. 

53 Stone (Darwell) A History of the Doctrine 

of the Holy Eucharist. 2 vols. 422 + 674p. 

Longmans, 1909. 

[Review will follow.] 

Anon. The Resurrection Body : A Study 
in the History of Doctrine. 

Church Q. R., April 1909. 

60 Perlmann (S. M.) The Jews in China. 

24p. Narodiczky, 1909. 

[Deals inter alia with the question why the 

Jews have been absorbed in China by the Chinese 

and not by the Christians.] 

Elrina (Dango) The Evangelisation of 
Japan. Harvard Theol. R., Apr. 1909. 

[Christianity has already taken root in the 
intellectual circles of Japan. If it succeeds also 
in taking root in the business world, it will 
triumph, and become the strongest moral power 
in Japan.] 

Brianquis (J.) Au retour du Lessonto. 
Rev. chre"t., Mar. 1909. 
[Describes the missionary situation there.] 
ServUre (J. de la) Le probleme des 
Missions. II. Le clerge" indigene. 

R. prat. d'Apologet., Mar. 1, 1909. 
[Answer to severe criticisms by Canon Joly.J 

D DOCTRINE 10 God, 22 - Christ, 60" 
Eschatology, 70 Faith, 90 " Apologetics. 

Home (G. Silvester), Selbie (IV. B.), and 
others. Mansfield College Essays. Pre- 
sented to the Rev. A. M. Fairbairn, D.D., 
on the occasion of his 70th birthday. 398p. 
Hodder & Stoughton, 1 909. 
[Eighteen essays, almost entirely theological in 
character. There is a bibliography of Dr Fair- 
bairn's writings.] 

Labauche (L.) La notion th6ologique de 
personne. 

R. prat. d'Apologet, Mar. 1, 1909. 
h Pfteiderer (Otto) Primitive Christianity : 
Its Writings and Teachings in their Histori- 
cal Connections. Translated by W. Mont- 
gomery, B.D. Vol. ii. (Theological Trans- 
lation Library, vol. xxvi.) 51 Op. 

Williams & Norgate, 1909. 
2 Jea/reson (Herbert H.) Modernism. 

Church Q. R., Apr. 1909. 
[Counsels modernists to avoid all inclination 
to form a party, and hopes no difficulties will 
induce them to separate from that part of the 
Catholic Church in which God has placed them.] 
Inge (W. R.} The Meaning of Modern- 
ism. Quar. R., Apr. 1909. 
[Objects to the modernists that the crisis of 
faith cannot be dealt with by establishing a 
modus Vivendi between scepticism and supersti- 
tion. Rather must one believe with Clement of 
Alexandria that wio-rij ^ -yctoai?, yv<aa~ni 6e ^ TTIOTIS.] 

29 Sharman (Henry Burton) The Teaching 
of Jesus about the Future according to the 
Synoptic Gospels. 396p. 

University of Chicago Press, 1909. 

[Au elaborate work. The word "Future" is 

used to denote the time subsequent to the final 



severance of relation! between Jesus and hi* 
disciples. There is excluded, therefore, the study 
of the reputed teaching of Jesus about his rejec- 
tion, sufferings, death, resurrection, and appear- 
ance after the resurrection. There is included, 
however, a chapter discussing the conception of 
Life after Death.] 

33 Tennant (F. R.) The Positive Elements 
in the Conception of Sin. Expos., May 1909. 

60 Spttta (F.) Die groase eachatologiache 
Rede Jesu. 

Theologische Stud. u. Krit, May 1909. 

65 Dole (Charles F.) Truth and Immor- 
tality. Harvard Theol. R, Apr. 1909. 
[We belong to a kingdom of|values, an order of 
good, a universe. The hope of immortality U our 
sense that the world may be trusted, that the 
real values abide : this world would not be quite 
a true world with the hope of immortality left 
out.] 

Dickinson (Q. Lowes) Is Immortality 
desirable 1 New Quar. , April 1 909. 

E ETHICS. 6 Christian Ethics, 7-9 
Transition to General Ethics, 10 Theories, 
20 Applied Ethics, Sociology, 23 Economics, 
27 Education. 

10 Wundt (Max) Geschichte der griech- 
ischen Ethik. Bd. i. Die Entetehung der 
griechischen Ethik. 530p. 

Engelmann, 1908. 

Croce (Benedetto) Filosofia della practica. 
434p. Guis, Laterza, e Figli, 1909. 

Anon. The Origin and Development of 
the Moral Ideas. Church Q. R. , April 1909. 

[Criticises Westermarck's book. What is im- 
portant for a scientific understanding of morality 
is not the development of moral ideas but the 
manifestation of moral feeling in action.] 

Sorley (W. R.) Evolutionary Ethics. 

Quar. R., April 1909. 

[Pleads for a teleological interpretation of the 
process of evolution, the explanation of its pur- 
pose being sought in consciousness. Insists on 
the distinction between the genesis and the 
validity of ethical ideas.] 

Wilde (Norman) The Meaning of Evo- 
lution in Ethics. Inter. J. Eth., Apr. 1909. 

[So far from evolution being the explanation of 
our moral judgments, our moral judgments are 
an explanation of evolution.] 

Calderoni (M.) Formes et criteres de 
responsabilite\ 

R. de Met. et de Morale, March 1909. 

[Attempts to distinguish precisely between 
moral and legal responsibility, and under the 
latter between criminal and civil responsibility. 
Criminal responsibility is independent of the 
general question of determinism.] 

Weber (L. ) La morale d'Epictete et lew 
besoins presents de 1'enseignement moral 
(fin). It. de Me"t et de Morale, March 1909. 

Piat(C.) Du fondement de 1'obligation 
morale (concluded). 

R. prat. d'Apologet., Mar. 1, 1909. 
20 Geissler (E^urt) Der Zusammenhalt der 
Seeleneinheit mit dem Problem der Fort- 
pflanzung, des Todes, der soziologischen 
Gemeinschaft und des soziologischen Fort- 
schrittes. 

Z. f. Phil. u. phil. Krit., cxxxiv. 1, 1909. 

Earth (Paul) Die Geschichte der Erzie- 
hung in soziologischer Beleuchtung : VIII. 
Vierteljahrssch. f. w. Phil., xxxiii. 1, 1909. 

[The philosophy of the German humanist* 
shown to be both humanistic and religious. 



954 



THE H1BBERT JOURNAL 



Their pedagogical theory is discussed, and also 
its effect upon the universities and secondary 
schools.] 

MacGreyor (D. H. ) Some Ethical Aspects 
of Industrialism. Inter. J. Eth. , Apr. 1909. 

Palante (G.) La sociologie de G. Simmel. 
Rev. Phil., April 1909. 

[Deals with Simmel's work, Sociologische Unter- 
tuchungen iiber die Formen der Vergesell- 
schaftung. 

Leblond (M. A.) L'ideal du xix* siecle. 
338p. Alcan, 1909. 

Bosanquet (Helen) The Poor Law Report 
of 1909. 270p. Macmillan, 1909. 

[A summary explaining the defects of the 
present system and the principal recommenda- 
tions of the Commision, so far as relates to 
England and Wales.] 

Barnctt (Canon S. A.) The Poor Law 
Report. Gout. R., April 1909. 

Anon. The Reform of the Poor Law. 

Quar. R., April 1909. 

Bois (H.) Les omvres social es et 

charitables de Japon. L'orphelinat d'Ishii. 

Le Christianisme social, Feb. and Mar. 1909. 

Calippe (C.) Mouvement social. 

R. du Clerge fraiigais, Jan. 1, 1909. 

[Dealing with the Geneva Conference of the 
Buyers' Social Leagues; the social work of 
Belgian Catholics ; and the policy of the Con- 
federation General du Travail.] 

Calippe (C. ) Mouvement social. 

R. du Clerge fran^ais, April 1, 1909. 

[With special reference to Roman Catholic social 
activities.] 

Liechtenhan (R. ) Le socialisme chretien 
dans la Suisse allemande. 

Le Christianisme social, Mar. 1909. 

Passy (P). Christianisme et socialisme. 
Le Christianisme social, Feb. 1909. 

[Thorough-going endorsement of socialism by a 
Christian.] 

23 Babut (C.) Consommation et production. 
A propos d'une maxiine de 1'apotre Paul. 

Le Christianisme social, Feb. 1909. 

[2Thess. iii. 10.] 

Davies (J. Llewelyn) Competition and 
Co-operation. Expos., May 1909. 

[The former is inevitable and desirable, but 
needs regulation.] 

27 Delvolve" (J.) Conditions d'une doctrine 
morale educative (suite etfin). 

R. de Met. et de Morale, Mar. and May 1909. 
[Considers, inter alia, whether the notion of 
God, as the basis of the religious organisation of 
the moral life, has an absolute practical value.] 

Armstrong (Edward) A Spanish Uni- 
versity : The Oviedo Tercentenary. 

Church Q. R., April 1909. 

28 Tolstoy (Leo) The Law of Force and the 
Law of Love : II. Fort R., April 1909. 

[ " We in our day have reached a position in 
which we can no longer stay ; whether we like it 
or no we must enter a new path of life ; but we 
only require for that purpose one thing to 
liberate ourselves from the superstitions of 
pseudo - Christianity and of governmental 
organisation."] 

F PASTORALIA. 2 Sermons. 

The Fellowship Hymn-book : 336 Hymns. 
Headley Brothers, 1909. 
[Designed for adult schools, brotherhoods, 
P.S.A. and other kindred societies.] 

Harris (J. Rendel) An Early Christian 
Hymn-book. Cont. R., April 1909. 



[Announces the recovery of a very early 
Psalter, containing both Jewish and Christian 
elements in its composition, whose separate 
hymns reach a total of more than sixty pieces, 
some of which are marked by a flne imagination 
and reflect a lofty spiritual experience.] 

Guibert (J.) L'apostolat de la miseri- 
corde. R. prat. d'Apologet, April 1, 1909. 

[Of pastoral interest.] 

2 Lewis (F. Warburton) The Work of 
Christ 203p. Culley, 1909. 

[Sermons preached at Holly Park Church, 
Crouch Hil 1.1 

Adler (Hermann) Anglo-Jewish Mem- 
ories, and other Sermons. 304 p. 

Routledge, 1909. 

Reid (John) The First Things of Jesus. 
262p. Clarke, 1909. 

G BIOGRAPHY. 2 English. 

Woodworih (R. S.) Hermann Ebbing- 
haus. J. of Phil., May 13, 190!). 

[An obituary notice, containing a nearly com- 
plete bibliography of Ebbinghaus's work.] 

1 Dutoit (Marie) Le Pascal de M. Strow- 
sky. Rev. chret., April 1909. 

[Review.] 

M. B. Eugene Bersier. 

Rev. chret, April 1909. 

Mailhet (A.) Quelques notes sur G. 

Farel. Rev. chret, April 1909. 

Pressense (Mme. E. de) Lettres ine"dites. 

Rev. chret, Mar. 1909. 

[Belonging to the period of M. Edmond de 

Pressense's last illness.] 

Schcell (T.) Gaston Frommel et ses 
etudes de the"ologie moderne. 

Rev. chret, Mar. 1909. 

2 Herkless (J.) and Hannay (R. K.) TJhe 
Archbishops of St Andrews. Vol. ii. 
267p. Blackwood, 1909. 

[This volume is devoted to Andrew orman, 
1465?-1521.] 

The Misses Story. Memoir of Robert 
Herbert Story, D.D., LL.D., Principal and 
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glas- 
gow. 422p. Maclehose, 1909. 

[Principal Story's daughters have compiled a 
most interesting account of their father's life and 
of his strenuous labours as a divine and as 
Principal of a great University.] 

H HISTORY, x Persecutions C Chris- 
tian M Mediaeval R Modern 2 English. 

C Duchesne (Louis) Early History of the 
Christian Church from its Foundation to 
the End of the Third Century. Rendered 
into English from the 4th ed. 448p. 

Murray, 1909. 

[A popular account. Author takes an inter- 
mediate position between the Tubingen critics 
and the orthodox apologists.] 

Glover (T. R.) The Conflict of Religions 
in the Early Roman Empire. 366p. 

Methuen, 1909. 

[A large part of this book formed the course of 
Dale Lectures delivered in Mansfield College, 
Oxford, in the spring of 1907. Review will 
follow.] 

Kennedy (H. A. A.) Apostolic Preaching 
and Emperor- Worship. 

Expositor, April 1909. 

[Attempts a more or less definite estimate of 
certain aspects of the bearing of the Imperial 
cult on Christian teaching and influence in the 
first age of the Faith.] 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 955 



Colder (W. M.) A Fourtli-Century 
Lycaonian Bishop : II. 

Expositior, Ajn-il 1909. 
[Further notes on the early career of Eugenius.] 
Moore (Clifford H.) Individualism and 
Religion in the Early Roman Empire. 

Harvard Theol. R., April 1909. 
Delchaye ( H. ) Sanctus. 

Anal. Bolland., torn, xxviii., fasc. 2. 

[Discusses: 1. The word sanctus in pagan 

speech ; 2. The word sanctus in Christian speech ; 

3. To whom the title saint applies.] 

Goodspeed (E. J.) The Neatorian Tablet 

Bibl. World, April 1909. 

[An account of this tablet at Sian-Fu, erected 

by the Nestorian mission in China more than 

a thousand years ago. A copy has been made 

for New York.] 

Poncelet(A.) Catalogus codicum hagio- 
graphicorum latinorum bibliothecarum 
Romanarum prseter quam Vatican*. 

Anal. Bolland., torn, xxviii., fasc. 2. 
M Dunand (P. H.) La "Jeanne d'Arc " 
de MM. Thalamas et A. France, et la 
Jeanne d'Arc de 1'histoire. 

R. prat. d'Apologet., April 1, 1909. 
Robinson (J. Armitage) Laufranc's Mon- 
astic Constitutions. J. Th. St., April 1909. 
R Lang (A.) The Reformation and Natural 
Law. Princeton Th. Rev., April 1909. 

1 INDIVIDUAL CHURCHES AND 

WRITERS. C Fathers 2 R.C. 
Church 3 Anglican. 

C Bigg (Charles) The Origins of Chris- 
tianity. Edited by T. B. Strong, Dean of 
Christ Church. 526p. 

Clarendon Press, 1 909. 
[The above work was sent to the press on July 
13, 1908. On the evening of that day Dr Bigg was 
seized by the illness of which he died on July 
15. The book is a summary account of the 
history and thought of the Church up to the point 
at which the persecuting edicts were withdrawn 
for the last time. Review will follow.] 

Stakemeier (B.) La Dottrina di Tertul- 
liano sul Sacramento dell' Eucaristia. 
Riv. stor.-crit. d. Scienze Teolog., Mar. 1909. 

2 Petschenig (M.) Sancti Aureli Augustini 
Scripta contra Donatistas. (Vol. Hi., Pars, 
ii. , of the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasti- 
corum Latinorum). 61 6p. Tempsky, 1909. 

[Contains the texts of Contra Litteras Petiliani, 
Epistula ad Catholicos de secta donatistarum, and 
Contra Cresconiuin.] 

Barry ( W. ) Innocent the Great. 

Quar. R., April 1909. 

M'Cabe (J.) The Iron Cardinal: The 
Romance of Richelieu. 401p. Nash, 1909. 

Bricout (J. ) Notre reponse a un defi. 
R. du Clerge francais, Mar. 15, 1909. 

[A summary of the articles on the truth of 
Catholicism, written as a reply to Loisy's 
challenge.] 

Decker (M.) Mouvement intellectuel 

religieux dans les pays de langue allemande. 

R. du Clerge franyais, Mar. 15, 1909. 

[Dealing at length with the modernist position 
in Germany.] 

Sortais ( G. ) Democratic et Catholicisme. 
R. prat. d'Apologet, April 15, 1909. 

[Adduces considerations and examples to show 
there is no incompatibility, " ni de droit ni de 
fait." The present conflict is due, therefore, to 
accidental causes which are removable.] 



Vacandard (E.) La verite du Catholi- 
cisme. IV. L'inBtitution formelle de 
1'Eglise par le Christ. 

R. du Clerge francais, Jan. 1, 1909. 

[Categorically affirmed, against LoUy.J 

Le ComM pour defend d I'Etranger la 
politiquc religicuse de la France. Lea 
textes de la politique francaise en matiere 
ecc!6siastique 1905-1908. 183p. 

Nourry, 1909. 

[All the texts are given In their strict entirety 
and without any commentary.] 

Mater (Andre") La politi'jue religieune 
de la R6publique fran^ise. 425p. 

Nourry, 1909. 

[This book is an introduction to a series of 
publications of texts, intended to make foreigners 
familiar with French religious politics. It shows 
how the Pope has interfered since 1905 not only 
with the French Government, but also with the 
whole of the French episcopacy.] 

Vidal (J. M. ) Le mouvement intellectupl 
religieux en Italie durant 1'annee 1908. 

R. du Clerge francais, Jan. 1, 1909. 

[Deals (i.) with the modernists of Italy and their 
writings, (ii.) with the attitude of non-believers 
towards them, and (iii.) with the anti-modernist 
polemic.] 

Frazer (P.) A Recent Chapter in the 
Modernist Controversy : The History of the 
Wahrmund Incident. 

Amer. J. Th., April 1909. 

[With excerpts from Wahrmund 's address. 
"Catholic View of the Universe . . .."which led 
to the trouble at Innsbruck University.] 

3 Planque (G.) Chez les Anglicans. 

R. du Clerge franyais, April 1, 1909. 
[A French Catholic's view of High and Low 
Church.] 

Talbot (Ethelbert) An American Diocese. 
Church Q. R., April 1909. 

4 Emerton ( Ephraim) Calvin and Servetus. 

Harvard Theol. R., April 1909. 
War field (B. B.) Calvin's Doctrine of 
the Knowledge of God. 

Princeton Th. Rev., April 1909. 
Strathmann (H. ) Cal vins Lehre von der 
Busse in ihrer spateren Gestalt. 

5 Theologische Stud. u. Krit., May 1909. 
Cooper (James) The Problem of Re- 
union in Scotland. 

Church Q. R., April 1909. 

9 Jones (Rufus M.) Studies in Mystical 

Religion. r56p. Macmillan, 1909. 

[Review will follow.] 

Braithwaite (W. Charles) Spiritual 
Guidance in the Experience of the Society of 
Friends. (Swarthmore Lectures, 1909.) 
112p. Headley Brothers, 1909. 

[Lessons drawn are (a) that the Divine Person- 
ality reveals Himself along the common ways of 
life and with the help of the natural faculties of 
man, and (b) that we wait for some phenomenal 
manifestation of the Spirit.] 

L LITERATURE. '2 English. 3 German. 
5 Italian. 9 Classical. 

Bay ley (Harold) A New Light on the 
Renaissance displayed in Contemporary 
Emblems. Illustrated with reproductions 
of numerous emblems. 278p. Dent, 1909. 

[A comprehensive study in mediaeval symbolism. 
Light is thrown upon the Legends of the St 
Grail, the Romaunt of the Rose, and other 
mediaeval allegories, and it is shown to what a 



956 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



rery deep extent this literature entered into the 
lives of contemporary craftsmen.] 

Browning (Oscar) The Old Culture and 

the New. New Quar., April 1909. 

2 Austin (Alfred) The Essentials of Great 

Poetry. Qnar. R., April 1909. 

Bradley (A. C.) Oxford Lectures on 
Poetry. 403p. Macmillan, 1909. 

[Delivered during author's tenure of the Chair 
of Poetry at Oxford, and not included in Shake- 
spearean Tragedy. Review will follow.] 

Magnus (Laurie) English Literature in 
the Nineteenth Century. 426p. 

Melrose, 1909. 

[The soul of the nineteenth century is revealed 
through the vision of its writers. Two move- 
ments especially stand out pre-eminently in 
retrospect. The first is the French Revolution, 
and the second is the Darwinian hypothesis. 
They are parts of a single whole, which may be 
called emancipation.] 

Toynbee (Paget) Dante in English 
Literature from Chaucer to Gary (c. 1380- 
1844). With Introd., Notes, Biographical 
Notices, Chronological List, and General 
Index. 2 vols. 724 + 757p. 

Methuen, 1909. 

[An elaborate work. The number of authors 
represented is between five and six hundred, and 
the number of separate works quoted, including 
letters, diaries, reviews, magazine articles, 
besides books proper, amounts to considerably 
over a thousand.] 

Forsyth (P. T.) Milton's God and 
Milton's Satan. Cont. R., April 1909. 

[" The grand flaw of this sublime and immortal 
book is what is also the most serious defect in a 
man, a society, or a nation a false or inadequate 
Idea of the character of God, through the absence 
of the cross of Christ."] 

Macbride (Melchior) The Story of 
Glastonbury and the Grail, or the Light of 
Avalon. A Mystery Play concerning the 
Introduction of Christianity to England by 
Joseph of Arimathea. 106p. 

Hunter & Longhurst, 1909. 

Manning (Frederic) Scenes and Portraits. 
296p. Murray, 1909. 

[The contents are : i. The King of Uruk ; ii. 
At the House of Euripides; iii. The Friend 
of Paul ; iv. The Jesters of the Lord ; v. At San 
Casciano ; vi. The Paradise of the Disillusioned. 
The author tells us that in these studies, all of 
them full of suggestive ideas, the principal influ- 
ence has been that of Renan.] 

Bradley (A. C.) English Poetry and 
German Philosophy in the Age of Words- 
worth. (The Adamson Lecture, 1909.) 
29p. Manchester Univ. Press, 1909. 

[Largely a comparison between Hegel and 
Wordsworth.] 

Lee (Sidney) Ovid and Shakespeare's 

Sonnets. Quar. R., April 1909. 

V Gribble (Francis) Edward Fitzgerald. 

Fort. R., April 1909. 

Faguet (E. ) The Centenary of Tennyson. 
Quar. R., April 1909. 

[A French estimate.] 

Glutton-Brock (A.) The Ideas of 
William Morris. New Quar., April 1909. 

Rhys (Ernest) A Tribute to Swinburne. 
19th Cent., June 1909. 

Gosse (Edmund) Swinburne : Personal 
Recollections. Fort R., June 1909. 

4 Anon. French Literature from the 
Renaissance to the Classic Age. 

Edin. R., April 1909. 



M RELIGIONS. MYTHOLOGY. 4 

Hinduism. 7 Judaism. 9 Demonology. 
12 Occultism. 

Marett (R. R.) The Threshold of 
Religion. 182p. Methuen, 1909. 

[Author holds that many other conditions 
besides animism were no less primary in the 
development of religion. He thinks it can be 
conclusively shown that, in some cases, animistic 
interpretations have been superimposed on what 
previously bore a non-animistic sense.] 

Clodd ( Edward) Pre- Animistic Stages in 
Religion. Fort. R., June 1909. 

Farnell (L. R.) Inaugural Lecture of 
the Wilde Lecturer in Natural and Com- 
parative Religion. 31p. Blackwell, 1909. 

Conybeare (F. C.) Myth, Magic, and 
Morals: A Study of Christian Origins. 
394p. Watts, 1909. 

[See p. 939.] 

Archambault (M.) Une question 
nouvelle: Les hi6roglyphes neo-cale- 
doniens. Rev. chr6t., Mar. and Apr. 1909. 

Brandenburg (E. ) Les vestiges des plus 
anciens cultes en Phrygie. 
R. de 1'Hist. des Religions, Jan. -Feb. 1909. 

Capart (Jean) Bulletin critique des 
religions de 1'Egypte (1906 et 1907). l er art. 
R. de 1'Hist. des Religions, Jan. -Feb. 1909. 

[Passes a large number of works and articles 
in review.] 

Leftbure (E.) Le bouc des Lupercales. 
R. de 1'Hist. des Religions, Jan. -Feb. 1909. 
5 Bardy (G.) A propos de la morale du 
Boudhisme. 

R. prat. d'Apologet, April 15, 1909. 

Smith (Vincent A.), Ed. The Edicts of 
Asoka. Edited in English, with an Introd. 
and Commentary. 77p. 

Privately printed, 1909. 

7 Castor (G. D.) The Kingdom of God in 
the Light of Jewish Literature. 

Bibliotheca Sac., April 1909. 

[An inaugural lecture.] 

9 Thompson (R. Campbell) Semitic Magic : 
Its Origins and Development. 332p. 

Luzac, 1908. 

Henry (Victor) La magic dans 1'Inde 
antique. (Bibliotheque de Critique religi- 
euse.) 328p. 2 e ed. Nourry, 1909. 

[This volume, by the Professor of Sanscrit ia 
the University of Paris, contains much new and 
interesting material.] 

12 The Writer of " Confessio Medici." The 
Faith and Works of Christian Science. 
252p. Macmillan, 1909. 

[A strongly adverse criticism.] 

Stead (W. T.) The Exploration of the 
Other World. Fort. R., May 1909. 

[Describes how the Bureau for the purpose of 
attempting to bridge the abyss between the Two 
Worlds will be worked.] 

P PHILOSOPHY. 10 ^-'Metaphysics, 21 
Epistemology, 33 ' ' Psychical Research, 40 ' 
Psychology, 60 " Logic, 70 " Systems, 90 " 
Philosophers. 

Lindsay (James) Studies in European 
Philosophy. 391p. Blackwood, 1909. 

[The twenty-two papers in this volume have, 
most of them, previously appeared in periodicals. 
Their unifying link is said to be "a certain 
spiritualistic element or idealistic tendency." 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 957 



Stress is laid upon the conception of personality 
both in God and man, in opposition to the 
Hegelian idealism.] 

Creighton(J. E.) The Idea of a Philo- 
sophical Platform. 

J. of Phil., March 18, 1909. 

[When we look to the history of philosophy as 
a whole, we become conscious of the fundamental 
basis of agreement, the real process that renders 
philosophy objective and real.] 

Wendel (G.) Systematische Philosophie 
und Einzelforschung. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., xv. 2, May 1909. 
10 Urban (Wilbur Marshall) Valuation: 
Its Nature and its Laws. Being an Intro- 
duction to the General Theory of Value. 
451p. Sonnenschein, 1909. 

[The theory of "value" is here considered as 
comprehending in a systematic way all types of 
human values. The problem is psychological, 
as dealing with subjective appreciations ; but, as 
values become objectified in normative judg- 
ments, there is also the problem here called 
" axiological " the "determination of the 
validity of distinctions between subjective and 
objective, already developed in worth ex- 
periences."] 

12 Roiismaniere (Frances H.) The Bases 
for Generalisation in Scientific Methods. 

J. of Phil., April 15, 1909. 
Mangt ( Francis) Le Rationalisme comme 
hvpothese methodologique. 61 8p. 

Alcan, 1909. 

13 Mutter (Alois) Ueber die Moglichkeit 
einer durch psychische Krafte bewirkten 
Aenderung der Energieverteilung in einem 
geschlossenen System. 

Z. f. Phil. u. phil. Krit., cxxxiv. 1, 1909. 

[Such a possibility seems precluded because it 
contraal ^s either physical facts or the character 
of physical laws or principles.] 

Lodge (Sir Oliver) The Ether of Space. 
(Library of Living Thought. ) 172p. 

Harper, 1909. 

[The ether of space is a continuous, incom- 
pressible, stationary, fundamental substance or 
perfect fluid. Matter is composed of modified 
and electrified specks, or minute structures of 
ether, which are amenable to mechanical as 
well as to electrical force, and add to the optical 
or electric density of the medium.] 

Campbell (Norman R.) The Physics of 
Gustave Le Bon. New Quar., April 1909. 

Ignotus. Suggestions for a Physical 
Theory of Evolution : II. 

Fort. R., April 1909. 

[Deals with various consequences of the 
" physical theory."] 

Snyder (Carl) The Physical Conditions 
at the Beginnings of Life. 

19th Cent, April 1909. 

Briot (A.) Les origines de la vie au 
point de vue scientifique. 

Rev. dePhil., April 1909. 

Pikler (Julius) Ueber die biologische 
Funktion des Bewusstseins. 13p. 

Zanichelli, 1909. 

[A. reprint from Rivista di Scienza " Scientia."] 

Arrhenius (Svante) The Life of the 
Universe. (Library of Living Thought.) 
2vols. 140 + 277p. Harper, 1909. 

[This book, translated by Dr H. Borus, is the 
work of the Director of the Physico-Chemical 
Nobel Institute, Stockholm. An attempt is made 
to trace the development of cosmogonic concep- 
tions from ancient days up to the present time.] 



MacColl (Hugh) Man's Origin, Destiny, 
and Duty. 208p. 

Williams & Norgate, 1909. 

[Review will follow.] 

Bennett (F. Palmer) Weismann's Theory 
of Heredity. Cont. R., April 1909. 

[Explains and criticises Weismann'a theory.] 

Moore (A. \V.) Absolutism and Tele- 
ology. Phil. R., Muy 1909. 

[Discusses the question whether absolute per- 
fectionism can be reconciled with the conception 
of evolution as an essential character of reality.] 

Seward (A. (7.), Ed. Darwin and 
Modern Science. Essays in Commemoration 
of the Centenary of the Birth of Charles 
Darwin and of the Fiftieth Anniversary of 
the Publication of The Origin of Species. 
612p. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1909. 

[Amongst the twenty-nine essays are contained : 
"Mental Factors in Evolution," by Principal Lloyd 
Morgan; "The Influence of the Conception of 
Evolution on Modern Philosophy," by Profeaaor 



Hoffding ; " The Influence of Darwin upon Be- 
igious Thought," by Rev. Father Waggett ; and 
The Influence of Darwinism upon the Study of 
" 



Religions," by Miss J. Harrison. 

Hubrecht (A. A. W.) Darwinism and 
Wallaceism. Cont. R., June 1909. 

Bateson (N.) Mendel's Principles of 
Heredity. 410p. 

Cambridge Univ. Press, 1909. 

14 Jaff& (George) Ueber die raumliche 

Auschauungsform : Vierter Dialog zu 

Berkeleys drei Dialogen zwischen Hylas 

und Philonous. 

Vierteljahrssch. f. w. Phil., xxxiii. 1, 1909. 
[Primary and secondary qualities are not only 
like in character, but also separably perceptible. 
Touch and visual sensations lead to different 
forms of perception.] 

Rawitz (B. ) Ueber Raum und Zeit. 
Arch. f. system. Phil., xv. 2, May 1909. 
Tramer (M.) Ein Versuch die Drei- 
dimensionalitat des Raumes auf eine einfache 
lagegeometrische Erfahrungsannahme zu 
stiitzen. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., xv. 2, May 1909. 
16 Duhem (P.) Le mouvement absolu et le 
mouvement relatif (Appendice). 

Rev. de Phil., April and May 1909. 
19 Brunschvieg (L.) Une phase du d6- 
veloppement de la pensee mathematique. 

R. de M6t. et de Morale, May 1909. 
Reymond (A.) Note sur le theorems 
d'existeuce des nombres entiers et sur la 
definition logistique du zero. 

R. de Met. et de Morale, March 1909. 
[Discusses the definition of zero in the works 
of Russell and Conturat. j 

Rogers (R. A. P.) Mr Haldane on 
Hegel's Continuity and Cantorian Philo- 
sophy. Mind, April 1909. 

[Continuity as understood by Hegel and con- 
tinuity as understood by Dedekind are quite 
distinct.) 

21 Milhaud (G.) La pensee mathematique : 
Son r61e dans 1'histoire des idees. 

Rev. Phil., April 1909. 
Schmidt (Karl) Critique of Cognition 
and its Principles. 

J. of Phil., May 27, 1909. 

[The distinction between cognition and know- 

ledge is placed in the concept of system. Know- 

ledge that satisfies the group of conditions for 

which the concept of system stands is cognition.] 



958 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



Ewer (B. C.) The Time Paradox in 
Perception. J. of Phil., March 18, 1909. 

[From any point of view the " sensible appear- 
ance," or object-as-perceived, if it is not identical 
with the psychical state, may be really past.] 

M' Oilvary (E. Bradley) Experience and 
its Inner Duplicity. 

J. of Phil., April 29, 1909. 

[Experienced things are, when experienced, 
together in a unique way; this unique way of 
togetherness is not the result or the by-product 
of their being experienced, but is what is meant 
by their being experienced.] 

Marvin ( Walter T. ) The Field of Pro- 
positions that have Full Factual W arrant. 
J. of Phil., May 13, 1909. 

[Answers three questions : (i.) What funda- 
mental relations do these judgments assert as 
obtaining between their terms? (ii.) How far is 
generalisation possible within their field ? (iii.) 
What place do these propositions occupy in the 
several branches of knowledge ?] 

Bush (Wendell T.) The Existential 
Universe of Discourse. 

J. of Phil,, April 1, 1909. 

[Knowledge cannot be defined in terms of 
perception. I do not know a thing when I per- 
ceive it unless I do more than perceive it. 
Knowledge of existence presumes and depends 
upon whatever existential universe of discourse 
we are provided with.] 

Perry (R. Barton) The Mind's Famili- 
arity with Itself. 

J. of Phil., March 4, 1909. 

[The accessibility of mind to itself, evident and 
important as it is, lends nevertheless no support 
to the contention that mind is known only in this 

W& Perry (M. Barton) The Mind Within 
and the Mind Without. 

J. of Phil., April 1, 1909. 

[The natural mind, or mind as here and now 
existing, is an organisation possessing as distin- 
guishable but complementary aspects, interest, 
body, and objects.] 

Farges (A.) L'union du sujet et de 

Pobiet dans la perception des sens externes. 

Rev. de Phil., April and May 1909. 

[Discusses the views of Aristotle and St Thomas 
Aquinas, and contends that we have an immedi- 
ate apprehension of material objects.] 

Sheffer (Henry M.) Ineffable Philo- 
sophies. 

[By this term is meant those systems which are 
based on premises which, for whatsoever reason, 
lead to no logical deductions, and which thus 
render the question of coherence, incoherence, 
consistency, and contradiction altogether mean- 
ingless. They are Illusion, Transformation, and 
Completion Philosophies.] 

23 Kroner (Richard) Ueber logische und 
asthetische Allgemeingultigkeit. 

Z. f. Phil. u. phil. Krit., cxxxiv. 1, 1909. 

[Maintains with Rickert the logical priority of 
Sollen to Sein. A law or principle is true because 
it is built logically upon judgments, and because 
these judgments and this logical construction 
ought to be unconditionally recognised by every 
thinking mind.] 
25 Seligmann(R.) Kausalitat. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., xv. 2, May 1909. 

Rohland (P.) Ueber Kausalitat und 
Finalitat 

Arch. f. system. Phil., xv. 2, May 1909. 

31 Sainsbury (Harrington) Drugs and the 

Drue Habit. With 11 illustrations. 321p. 

Methuen, 1909. 

[This treatise does not aim at being a text-book. J 
Its purpose rather is to look at the essentials of I 
the task which disease sets and drugs undertake, ' 



and to discuss with what show of reasonableness 
the medicaments can claim to be equal to their 
task. Questions of psychological interest are 
discussed.] 

33 Vaschide (N.) Essai sur la psychologic 
de la main. (Bibliotheque de Philosophic 
experimentale. ) 504p. Riviere, 1909. 

[An extensive series of experiments. M. Charles 
Richet has written a preface, referring regret- 
fully to the early death of the author.] 

40 Duprat (G. L.) Sur la duree des faite 
psychiques. Rev. Phil., May 1909. 

Loveday (T.) On Certain Objections to 
Psychology. Mind, April 1909. 

[A criticism of Prichard's article in Mind, 
N.S.,61.] 

Fleischmann (A.) Ueber die objektive 
Existenz der psychischen Energie. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., xv. 2, May 1909. 

Coe (George A.) The Mystical as a 
Psychological Concept. 

J. of Phil., April 15, 1909. 

Baldwin (J. Mark) Motor Processes and 
Mental Unity. J. of Phil., April 1, 1909. 

[Reply to Judd.] 

Thorndike (E. L.) A Note on the 
Specialisation of Mental Functions with 
Varying Content. J. of Phil., April 29, 1909. 

Offner (Max) Das Gedachtniss : Die Ergeb- 
nisse der experimentelleu Psychologic und 
ihrer Anwendung in Unterricht und Erzie- 
hung. 281 p. Renter und Reichard, 1909. 

Miller (Irving E.) The Psychology of 
Thinking. 318p. Macmillan, 1909. 

[The dominant point of view is biological in the 
broad sense. The life process is regarded in 
terms of the satisfaction of needs in the case of 
man. Special attention is paid to the activity of 
imagination in thinking.] 

Ribot ( Th. ) La conscience affective. 

Rev. Phil., April 1909. 

[The affective consciousness is the consciousness 
of vital energies in the individual and their 
modalities : it is manifested as a natural force.] 

44 Drews (Arthur) Das Unbewusste in der 
modernen Psychologic. 

Z. fur Phil. u. phil. Krit., cxxxiv. 1, 1909. 
[A defence of Von Hartmann against the 
criticisms of Herbertz in his book, Bewusstsein 
und Unbewusstes.] 

45 Schwartzkopff (Dr) 1st die Seele eine 
Substanz ? 

Z. f. Phil. u. phil. Krit., cxxxiv. 1, 1909. 

[Contends, as against Paulsen, that an intel- 
ligible notion of substance, in which the notion 
of life is included, is applicable to the soul. 
The psychical whole is not only immanent in its 
parts and functions, but also transcends them, 
and is in so far substance.] 

48 Claparede (Ed.) Psychologic de 1'enfant 
et pedagogic experimeutale. Deuxieme ed. , 
revue et augmented. 291p. Ktindig, 1909. 

[Deals with Problems and Methods, Mental 
Development, Intellectual Fatigue.] 
53 Marshall (H. Rutgers) Clearness, In- 
tensity, and Attention. 

J. of Phil., May 27, 1909. 

[What in one field appears as a change of 
what we commonly call clearness or vividness, 
in another field appears as a change of what we 
commonly call intensity. Intensity and clearness 
are names for the same characteristic in different 
settings.] 

Warstat ( Willi) Vom Individual begriflf. 
Vierteljahrssch. f. w. Phil., xxxiii. 1, 1909. 

[Criticises the Kantian view that there can be 
no concepts of individuals, and examines the 
views of Riehl and Sigwart with regard to such 



RECENT LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY 959 



concepts. Author insists that without concepst 
of individuals, sense perception and thought 
would be whole disparate functions.] 

60 Goblot (E.) Sur le syllogisme de la 
premiere figure. 

R. de Me"t. et de Morale, May 1909. 
Hahn (0.) and Neurath (0.) Zum 
Dualismus in der Logik. 

Arch. f. system. Phil., xv. 2, May 1909. 

(54 Hocking (W. E.) Two Extensions of the 

Use of Graphs in Elementary Logic. (Univ. 

of California Publications in Philosophy.) 

14p. California Univ. Press, 1909. 

71 Kronenberg (M.) Geschichtedesdeutschen 
Idealismus. Bd.i. Die idealistische Ideen- 
Entwicklung von ihren Anfangen bis Kant. 
440p. Oscar Beck, 1909. 

Albee (Ernest) The Present Meaning of 
Idealism. Phil. R., May 1909. 

[Idealism may be said to have lived through 
its subjective phase, and the opposition between 
idealism and realism may be done away with in 
the not too distant future, on the basis of our 
increasing recognition of experience itself as 
the real.] 

72 Macmillan (R. A. C.) Reflective Judg- 
ment: The High- Water Mark in the 
Critical Philosophy. Mind, April 1909. 

[The usual criticism is that Kant has violated 
the nature of Feeling, particularly aesthetic, by 
reducing it to a form of intellectual cognition. 
In point of fact, he does quite the opposite. 
While in seeming he brings Feeling back to 
functions of knowledge, in the process of proof 
he lifts up knowledge into relationship with the 
Personal, free activity of Mind.] 

Kelly (M. ) Kant's Philosophy as rectified 
by Schopenhauer. 128p. 

Sonnenschein, 1909. 

[Schopenhauer's Principle of the Sufficient 
Ground is the completion of the Aesthetik of the 
Critique of Pure Reason.] 

Amrhein (Hans) Kants Lehre vom 
Bewusstsein iiberhaupt und ihre Weiter- 
bildung bis auf die Gegenwart. 220p. 

Reuther & Richard, 1909. 

[A very careful investigation in which the whole 
of the passages in Kant's writings relating to the 
conception are taken into account.] 

Witten (R. ) Zur Kritik des Kritizismus. 
Arch. f. system. Phil., xv. 2, May 1909. 
74 James (William) A Pluralistic Uni- 
verse: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester 
College on the Present Situation in Philo- 
sophy. 405p. Longmans, 1909. 

[Review will follow.] 

Watson (John) Mr Rashdall's Defence 
of " Personal Idealism." Mind, April 1909. 

[As against Rashdall, author maintains there 
is no division between knowledge and reality 
in principle, and therefore no separation between 
any mode of existence and any other. He denies 
that there are " objects " which exist only in the 
individual mind of this or that person, and indeed 
rejects altogether the co? i ception of " reality " as 
divided up into separate " things."] 

Talbot (Ellen Bliss) Humanism and 
Freedom. J. of Phil., March 18, 1909. 

Riley (L. Woodbridge) Transcendental- 
ism and Pragmatism. 

J. of Phil., May 13, 1909. 

[Between New England transcendentalism and 
New England pragmatism there are some strik- 
ing parallels.] 

Bordeau (J.) Pragmatisme et modern - 
isme. 243p. Alcan, 1909. 

Montague (W. P.) The True, the Good, 



and the Beautiful from a Pragmatic Stand- 
point J. of Phil., April 29, 1909. 
[Despite their inseparability, the conative and 
the cognitive types of value are aa distinct from 
one another aa north and south, and to seek to 
identify them or to reduce either to a form of the 
other is sheer confusion.] 

Berthelot (R.) Sur le pragmatisme d 
Nietzsche (suite). 

R. de Met et de Morale, May 1909. 

[Nietzsche recognises in the Sophist*, and 
specially in Protagoras, an anticipation of his 
own way of interpreting the nature of truth 
and Plato's argument against Protagoras in the 
Theaetetus is equally valid against himself.] 

Moore (A. W.) " Anti-Pragmatisme." 
J. of Phil., May 27, 1909. 

[Reply to Professor Schinz.] 

Knox (H. V.) Pragmatism: Evolution 
of Truth. Quar. R., April 1909. 

[The distinction between "true" and "false," 
" real " and " unreal" only becomes applicable, 
only acquires real meaning, when thought U 
taken in its dynamic and temporal aspect. To 
dehumanise truth is to extract and cast aside its 
very essence.] 

Schiller (F. C. S.) Solipsism. 

Mind, April 1909. 

[Most of the great systems of philosophy are 
logically solipsisms. The humanist's refutation 
of solipsism is simple and sufficient. He is not a 
solipsist, because he chooses to believe in the 
existence of others.] 

76 Rey (A.) Vers le positivisme absolu. 

Rev. Phil., May 1909. 
[A plea for a scientific philosophy, based upon 
the results of scientific investigation, and bring- 
ing to light the implications of scientific laws and 
principles.] 

77 Baelen (M.) Le mecanisme moniste de 
Taine (i. art). Rev. de Phil., May 1909. 

79 Baillie (J. B. ) Professor Laurie's Natural 
Realism. II. The Ontology of Natural 
Realism. Mind, April 1909. 

[Criticises Laurie's tendency to take the factor 
of negation and evil per se as a separate element 
in our temporal-spatial existence. "God is a 
spirit, but a spirit in difficulty." Our task as men 
is to co-operate with Him and " sympathise with 
Him " in His struggle as He sympathises with us 
in ours. Such a position, it is contended, makes 
man's position as well as God's apparently hope- 
less.] 

84 Stewart (J. A.) Plato's Doctrine of 
Ideas. 206p. Clarendon Press, 1909. 

[Author here devotes himself to the question, 
" What has present-day Psychology to tell us 
about the variety of experience which expresses 
itself in Plato's Doctrine of Ideas ? " He discusses 
the doctrine first on the methodological, then on 
the jesthetic side.] 

Watson (J. M.) Aristotle's Criticisms 
of Plato. 88p. Clarendon Press, 1909. 

89 Overstreet (H. Allen) The Dialectic of 
Plotinus. (University of California Publi- 
cations in Philosophy. ) 29p. 

California Univ. Press, 1909. 

[The importance of Plotinus's work lies in the 
fact that he, of all Greek thinkers, makes the 
most persistent and serious effort to win the 
higher category of Spirit. All the inntinct of hi 
dialectic is of Spirit ; but all his traditional Hellen- 
ism is of Being.] 

Perrier (J. Louis) The Revival of Schol- 
astic Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century. 
352p. Columbia Univ. Press, 1909. 

90 Jungmann (K. ) Rene Descartes : Eine 
Einfuhruijg in seine Werke. 242p. 

Erkardt, 1908. 



960 



THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 



[A thorough and scholarly treatment of 
Descartes' philosophy, especially of his theory 
of knowledge. Use has been made of his recently 
published correspondence, and on its basis a new 
interpretation of his doctrine is presented.] 

Wenzel (Alfred} Zur Textkritik von 
Spinozas Tractatus de Intellectus Emenda- 
tione. 

Z. f. Phil. u. phil. Krit., cxxxiv. 1, 1909. 

92 Richert (Hans) Schopenhauer: Seine 
Personlichkeit, seine Lehre, seine Bedeu- 
tung. 114p. Teubner, 1909. 

93 Watson (John) The Idealism of Edward 
Caird : I. and II. 

Phil. R., March and May, 1909. 

[Idealism meant for Caird the doctrine that 
man is capable, in virtue of his reason, of com- 
prehending reality as it actually is ; that reality 
as it is, and not merely as it appears, is capable 
of being known, and indeed that, unless this is 
admitted, all experience, theoretical or practical, 
becomes inexplicable.] 

Wenley (R. M. ) Edward Caird. 

Harvard Theol. R., April 1909. 

[An account of Caird's life arid work and an 
estimate of his personality. A full list of his 
books and articles is appended. 

94 Renouvier (Ch.) et Secrttan (Oh.) Cor- 
respondance ine"dite (suite). 

R. de M6t. et de Morale, May 1909. 

[Mainly on the conception of liberty.] 

Benrubi (J.) La philosophic de R. 
Eucken. Rev. Phil., April 1909. 

[A sympathetic account of Eucken's meta- 
physical, ethical, and religious views. Writer 
speaks enthusiastically of Eucken's influence as 
a teacher.] 

Braun ( 0. ) Euckens dramatische Lebens- 
philosophie. 

Z. f. Phil. u. phil. Krit, cxxxiv. 1, 1909. 

[An appreciative and interesting sketch of 
Eucken's attempt to exhibit the spiritual life as 
developing out of itself a reality which belongs 
to the structure of the world.] 

FouilUe (A.) Le retour eternel: 
Nietzsche et Lange. Rev. Phil., May 1909. 

Nietzsche (Friedrich) Thoughts out of 
Season. Part I., David Strauss, the Con- 
fessor and the Writer. Richard Wagner in 
Bayreuth. Translated by A. M. Ludovici. 
Part II., The Use and Abuse of History. 
Schopenhauer as Educator. Translated by 
A. Collins, M.A. 2 vols., 242 + 213p. 

Foulis, 1909. 

Nietzsche (Friedrich) Beyond Good and 
Evil. Prelude to a Philosophy of the 
Future. Translated by Helen Zimmern. 
283p. Foulis, 1909. 

[An Introduction, by Thomas Common, con- 
nects Nietzsche with Pragmatism.] 

Nietzsche (Friedrich) The Birth of 
Tragedy ; or, Hellenism and Pessimism. 
Translated by W. A. Haussmann. 224 p. 
Foulis, 1909. 



[Introduction, by E. Fbrster-Nietzsche, deals 
with the author's life.] 

Farges (A.) Le probleme de la con- 
tingence d'apres M. Bergsou. 

R. prat. d'Apologet., April 15, 1909. 



V ART. 83 Sacred Music. 

Miinsterberg (Hugo) The Problem of 
Beauty. Phil. R., March 1909. 

[Beauty we serve by devotion, but in surrender- 
Ing ourselves to it we overcome the world and 
liberate ourselves from its struggles and griefs ; 
for the service of beauty demands that we feel 
with the will of nature and inhibit the chance 
will of our own.] 

Kessler- Salem (L.) Symbolische Ein- 
fuhlung. 

Z. f. Phil. u. phil. Krit. cxxxiv. 1, 1909. 

[The results reached by Lipps, Volkelt, Wundt, 
and others can be fruitfully extended, if atten- 
tion be directed to the passive feature in Ein- 
fiihlung. For then not only a symbolical 
Einfuhlung in what is non-personal takes place, 
but also in persons. This is discussed in its 
sesthetical, ethical, metaphysical, and religious 
significance.] 

Baldwin (J. M.) La memoire affective 
et 1'Art. Rev. Phil., May 1909. 

Baldwin (J. Mark) The Springs of Art. 
Phil. R., May 1909. 

[Two impulses, imitation and self-exhibition, 
are the springs of art, both operative through 
the content set up by the constructive or sem- 
blant imagination.] 

Lalo (Ch.) Beaute naturelle et beaute 
artificielle. Rev. Phil., May 1909. 

[Contends that these two kinds of beauty are 
fundamentally distinct. ] 

Phillipps (L. March) The Ethics of 
Greek Art. Cont. R., June 1909. 

[Mystics, poets, and all who realise inward 
things vividly, speak of the eye of the mind and 
of spiritual sight. There exists a relationship 
between the laws of sight and ethical laws, and 
so it was natural enough that the Greeks, follow- 
ing the eye's dictates, should have been led to an 
independent testimony to the value of ethical 
truths. Thus considered, the aesthetic faculty is 
no slave, but an ally of the mind. It brings 
troops of its own into the field, and supports, 
with all that the eye holds beautiful, all that the 
mind holds true.] 

Jones (H. Stuart) The Remains of 

Ancient Painting. Quar. R., Apr. 1909. 

83 Maitland(J. A.) A Century of English 

Music. Quar. R., Apr. 1909. 

Couillault (C.) Le " Graduel romain " 
de Tuition vaticane et Pceuvre gre"gori- 
enne de Prex. 

R. du Clerg fra^ais, Apr. 1, 1909. 

[Apropos of the publication of the first volume 
of the authorised Roman plain song.] 



[NOTE. For an explanation of the system of classification adopted in the Bibliography, 
readers are referred to HIBBERT JOURNAL, vol. i. p. 630 sag.] 

G. D. H. and J. H. W. 



INDEX. 



ARTICLES. 

ATOMIC THEORIES AND MODERN PHYSICS, 864. 
BERGSON, THE PHILOSOPHY OF, 562. 
BOOKLESS RELIGION, 163. 

CHESTERTON, MR G. K., THE MESSAGE OF, 541. 
CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE RELIGIONS, 510. 
CHRISTIANITY AND THE EMPIRE IN ROME AND IN CHINA, 639. 
CHRISTIANITY, Is THERE A COMMON ? 493. 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AS AFFECTED BY LIBERAL THEOLOGY, 404. 
CHOICE, 802. 
CREDO, 481. 

CRIMINALS, A GREAT REFORM IN THE TREATMENT OF, 391. 
CULTE DBS SAINTS DANS L!SLAM, LE, 844. 

CULT OF ANCESTORS AND HEROES, RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF 
THE, 415. 

DETERMINISM AND MORALS, 113. 

EARTH-SOUL, THE DOCTRINE OF, AND OF BEINGS INTERMEDIATE BETWKEN 
MAN AND GOD, 278. 

EVANGELICAL BARGAINING, 174. 

GREAT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT, A, 49. 

HEGEL AND HIS METHOD, 63. 

How MAY CHRISTIANITY BE DEFENDED TO-DAY? 152. 

INFALLIBILITY AND TOLERATION, 76. 

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MORAL EDUCATION, THE CENTRAL PROBLEM 
OF, 346. 

ISLAM, THE RELIGION OF COMMON SENSE, 522. 

Is NATURE GOOD? A CONVERSATION, 827. 

VOL. VII. 961 61 



962 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

"JERAHMEEL THEORY," THE, 132. 

JESUS OR CHRIST? AN APPEAL FOR CONSISTENCY, 352. 

JESUS OR CHRIST ? A REPLY TO MR ROBERTS, I., 746 ; II., 759. 

JESUS' SECOND VISIT ON EARTH, THE MOSLEM TRADITION OF, 27. 

KANT'S TRANSCENDENTAL ^ESTHETIC IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN MATHE- 
MATICS, 890. 

LIFE IN THE WEST, THE MISCARRIAGE OF, 1. 

MATTHEW AND MARK, VARIATIONS BETWEEN, 649. 

MESSAGE OF MODERN MATHEMATICS TO THEOLOGY, THE, 370, 623. 

MORAL INSTRUCTION, Is THE OLD TESTAMENT A SUITABLE BASIS FOR? 333. 

OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM, A NEW DEVELOPMENT IN, 813. 

PAIN, 122. 

PRAGMATISM, THE CONFUSION OF, 784. 

PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS AND RELIGION, 295. 

REALITY OF GOD, A NEGLECTED ARGUMENT FOR THE, 90. 

RELIGION, A CHINESE STATESMAN'S VIEW OF, 19. 

RELIGIOUS LIFE AND THOUGHT IN GERMANY TO-DAY, 721. 

ST JOHN'S GOSPEL, ON Two DISLOCATIONS IN, 662. 

SCOTTISH ESTABLISHMENT FROM AN INSIDE POINT OF VIEW, THE, 882. 

SIN, THE OVER-EMPHASIS OF, 614. 

SOCIAL CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE, THE, 314, 578. 

SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS AS A MORAL IDEAL, THE INSUFFICIENCY OF, 596. 

SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH, SOME RECENT INVESTIGATIONS BY 
THE, 241. 

SURVIVAL OF DEATH, NEW FACTS ON OUR, 261. 

WAR, MORAL FORCE IN, 767. 



Anon., Credo, 481. 

Alford, B. H., Rev., M.A., Variations between Matthew and Mark, 649. 

Balfour, G. W., Rt. Hon., Some Recent Investigations by the Society for 

Psychical Research, 241. 
Bartlett, Lucy C., Miss, A Great Reform in the Treatment of Criminals, 

391. 

Brown, Alexander, Rev., The Over-Emphasis of Sin, 614. 
Buckham, John Wright, D.D., Christianity among the Religions, 510. 
Burton, J. W., Rev., Christian Missions as affected by Liberal Theology, 

404. 
Chesterton, G. K., Jesus or Christ ? A Reply to Mr Roberts, 746. 



INDEX 963 

Cheyne, T. K., Rev., D.Litt., D.D., The " Jerahmeel Theory ," 132. 

Dewey, John, Prof., Is Nature Good ? A Conversation, 827. 

Eerdmans, B.D., Prof., A New Development in Old Testament Criticism, 

813. 
Farnett, Lewis R., Dr., Religious and Social Aspects of the Cult of 

Ancestors and Heroes, 41 5. 
Forsyth, P. T., Rev., D.D., The Insufficiency of Social Righteousness as a 

Moral Ideal, 596. 
Frew, D., Rev., The Scottish Establishment from an Inside Point of 

View, 882. 

Graham, John, Principal, New Facts on our Survival of Death, 261 . 
Hart, Reginald, Lt.-Gen. Sir, V.C., Moral Force in War, 767. 
Herbert, von, F. W., The Moslem Tradition of Jesus 1 Visit on Earth, 27. 
Hopps, John Page, Evangelical Bargaining, 174. 

Hutton, John A., Rev., M.A., The Message of Mr G. K. Chesterton, 541. 
Ishak, Ibn, Islam, the Religion of Common Sense, 522. 
James, William, Prof., Hegel and his Method, 63. 

The Doctrine of the Earth-Soul and of Beings 

intermediate between Man and God, 278. 
The Philosophy of Bergson, 562. 

Johnston, Charles, A Chinese Statesman's View of Religion, 19. 
Keyser, C. J., Prof., The Message of Modern Mathematics to Theology, 

370, 623. 

Ladd, G. T., Prof., The Confusion of Pragmatism, 784. 
Madagan, P. J., Rev., M.A., D.Phil., Christianity and the Empire in 

Rome and in China, 639. 
M'Giff'ert, A. C., Prof., How may Christianity be Defended To-Day? 

152. 

Marshall, Henry Rutgers, Dr., Psychotherapeutics and Religion, 295. 
Moffatt, James, Rev., D.D., Bookless Religion, 163. 
Montet, E., Prof., D.D., Le Culte des Saints dans Tlslam, 844. 
More, Louis T., Prof., Atomic Theories and Modern Physics, 864. 
Moulton, J. H., Prof., Jesus or Christ ? A Reply to Mr Roberts, 759. 
Muirhead, J. H., Prof., Is there a Common Christianity ? 493. 

The Central Problem of the International Congress 

on Moral Education, 346. 
Paul, F. J., Rev., M.A., B.D., On Two Dislocations in St John's Gospel, 

662. 

Peirce, C. S., A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God, 90. 
Plater, Charles, Rev., S. J., A Great Social Experiment, 49. 
Ramanathan, P., C.M.G., K.C., The Miscarriage of Life in the West, 1. 
Roberts, R., Rev., Jesus or Christ ? An Appeal for Consistency, 352. 
Russell, Bertrand, Hon., Determinism and Morals, 113. 
Schiller, F. C. S., Dr., Choice, 802. 

Infallibility and Toleration, 76. 
Scudder, Vida, Miss, The Social Conscience of the Future, 314, 578. 



964 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Smith, W. B., Prof., Kant's Transcendental .Esthetic in the Light of 

Modern Mathematics, 890. 
Stephen, Caroline, Miss, Pain, 122. 
Tasmania, Rt. Rev. Bishop of, Is the Old Testament a Suitable Basis for 

Moral Instruction ? 333. 
Weinel, H., Prof., Religious Life and Thought in Germany To-Day, 721. 



DISCUSSIONS. 

Astley, H. J. Dukinfield, Rev., D.D., The " Jerahmeel Theory," 441. 
Cheyne, T. K., Rev., D.D., Criticisms of the North Arabian Theory, 673. 
Cotter, W. E. P., Science and the Purpose of Life, 191. 
Crooker, J. H., Rev., D.D., Professor Flinders Petrie on "Constraint 

respecting Liquors," 439. 

Eshleman, C. H., Professor James on Fechner's Philosophy, 671. 
Evans, J., Rev., The Over-Emphasis of Sin, 915. 
Norton, Robert F., Rev., D.D., Jesus or Christ ? 669. 
Houston, D., Rev., The Church of Scotland and its Formula, 195. 
Jerome, T. S., Dr Schiller on Infallibility and Toleration, 437. 
Inkpin, H. W., The Social Conscience of the Future, 912. 
MacCott, Hugh, Mathematics and Theology, 916. 
M'Gilvary, E. B., Prof., British Exponents of Pragmatism, 443. 
Montague, H. O., The Insufficiency of Social Righteousness, 911. 
Schiller, F. C. S., Infallibility and Toleration, 670. 
Stewart, W. C., Rev., Is Civilisation in Danger ? 188. 
Welby, Lady Victoria, How may Christianity be Defended To-Day ? 436. 
Widdrington, Captain, The Right to Constrain Men for their own 

Good, 193. 



REVIEWS. 

Add, W. E., Rev., M. A. Anon., Father and Son, 214. 

Barbour, G. F., M.A. James Adam, The Religious Teachers of Greece, 

198. 

Boyer, P. J., Rev., M.A.A. H. M'Neile, The Book of Exodus, 226. 
Carpenter, J. Estlin, Rev. Principal, D.D. Religion in the Further East, 

700. 



INDEX 965 

Corrance, H. C., M.A. Marcel Hebert, Le Pragmatisme, 218. 

Coulton, G. G., M.A. James Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation in 

England, 693. 
Fawkes, Alfred, Rev. Caroline Stephen and Edward Grubb, Light 

Arising, and Authority and the Light Within, 458. 
Ffrench, G. E., B.D. Brooke Foss Westcott, The Gospel according to 

St John, 697. 
Gardner, E. A., Prof., M.A.L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek 

States, 927. 
Garrod, H. W., M.A.G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 448. 

H. G. Wells, First and Last Things ; and Margaret 

Benson, The Venture of Rational Faith, 680. 
Hicks, G. Dawes, Prof., Litt. D. Robert Adamson, The Development of 

Greek Philosophy, 919. 
Jones- Davies, W., Rev. Principal. Robert Scott, The Pauline Epistles: 

A Critical Study, 942. 

Jordan, Louis K., Rev. Nathan Soderblom, Studiet av Religionen, 467. 
Marett, R. R., M.A.F. C. Conybeare, Myth, Magic, and Morals : A Study 

of Christian Origins, 939. 
Moffatt, James, Rev. Dr. Lewis A. Muirhead, The Terms of Life and 

Death in the Old and New Testaments, and other Papers, 224. 
Petersen, Mrs.T. W. Rolleston, Parallel Paths, 461. 
Rashdall, Hastings, Rev. Dr. Julia Wedgwood, The Moral Ideal : A 

Historic Study, 933. 
Roberts, R., Rev. C. Frederick Nolloth, The Person of our Lord and 

Recent Thought, 945. 
Rolleston, T. W., M.A. Paul Sabatier, Modernism : The Jowett Lectures 

for 1908, 690. 
Russell, Bertrand, Hon., F.R.S.G. Stuart Fullerton and Others, Essays 

in honor of William James, 203. 
Seeger, W. T.P. Ramanathan, The Culture of the Soul among Western 

Nations, 706. 

Solomon, Lawrence. John Morley, Miscellanies, Fourth Series, 676. 
Sorley, W. R., Prof., LL.D. Josiah Royce, The Philosophy of Loyalty, 207. 
Souter, A., Dr. C. H. Turner, ed. Ecclesiae Occidentalis Monumenta 

luris Antiquissima, Canonum et Conciliorum Graecorum Interpreta- 

tiones Latinae. Tomi Secundi, Pars Prior, 227. 
Stock, St George, M.A. Sir Oliver Lodge, Man and the Universe, 451. 

H. Barclay Swete, The Apocalypse of St John, 

220. 
Thomas, J. M. Lloyd. Canon and Mrs S. A. Barnett, Towards Social 

Reform, 684. 
Tyrrell, G., Rev. Baron F. von Hugel, The Mystical Element of Religion, 

687. 
Vincent, G. E., Prof. W. M'Dougall, An Introduction to Social 

Psychology ; and Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics, 930. 



966 THE HIBBERT JOURNAL 

Weatherall, J. //., Rev. James Hastings and Others, A Dictionary of 

Christ and the Gospels, 465. 
Wolf, A., Dr.mile Meyerson, Identite et Realite, 210. 

A. C. Pigou, The Problem of Theism, and Other Essays, 
454. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

RECENT BOOKS AND ARTICLES, 229, 469, 709, 949. 



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